Economics
2020 · 3m · Canada
Directed by Philip Eddolls
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, provocative
Economist Armine Yalnizyan delivers a brief, pointed critique of a dysfunctional economic system. She argues for changes needed not only to survive but to thrive in the twenty-first century.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A three-minute economics lecture dressed up as cinema—it's basically a TED talk that forgot to be subversive, which is exactly the kind of well-intentioned earnestness that makes me want to burn the whole thing down and start over.
Eddolls commits fully to the essay film tradition, letting Yalnizyan's argument breathe through measured pacing and deliberate visual accompaniment that trusts the viewer's intelligence—it's formal restraint in service of clarity, the kind of thing that belongs in a conversation about how documentary can still be cinema.
The film's only real move is staking everything on Yalnizyan's presence and conviction; that choice—letting her carry the entire weight without manipulation or montage—is either the film's greatest strength or its fatal limitation, depending on whether you believe an idea delivered with enough certainty *is* cinema.