Not just about burgers

Two Worlds Collide is the inside story of how a single father, Dave Morris, and a part-time bar worker, Helen Steel, took on burger giants McDonald's. The film reveals how English libel laws ill serve democracy or freedom of speech - anyone without fabulous wealth is usually put off. But in this case McDonald's underestimated the doggedness of Helen and Dave.

Filmed over three years, the documentary follows Helen and Dave as they are transformed from anonymous campaigners into unlikely global heroes defending themselves in the longest trial in English history. Along the way they face secret meetings with top executives, 40,000 pages of background reading, a visit from Ronald McDonald, and confirmation that the producers of the leaflet, London Greenpeace, had been infiltrated by spies.

The 52-minute documentary uses interviews with witnesses and reconstructions of key moments in court (directed by Ken Loach) to examine the main issues in the trial nutrition, advertising, employment, animals, environment - and the implications for freedom of speech.

It is one of the most important trials ever. The longest ever English trial, it raises crucial questions for us all as individuals and as a society:
* Do we allow multinational companies to rule us, rather than elected bodies?
* Whose side is the law on?
* How much more like the USA do we want to be?
* Do we value capitalism and the pursuit of money over everything else?
* Should company practice be under scrutiny morally as well as legally?

Dave and Helen spent years of their lives raising these questions. They didn't do it for money, they did it because they believe McDonald's shouldn't be allowed to wield such power and have the support of the courts to do so. They acted from a sense of justice and in defence of the right to freedom of speech.

The tide has seemed to be in favour of those who would homogenise, standardise and globalise, into larger, less accountable, more powerful institutions which are inaccessible and interested only in maximum and immediate profit.

This film is beautifully shot and clearly illustrates how McLibel is not about hamburgers. It is about multinational corporations and the power they wield over our everyday lives. Worth giving up six years of your life for?

 
more reviews
back to home page