Jennifer Baichwal’s brilliant documentaries exemplify the alignment of form with content as she imaginatively transposes other artists’ work into the film medium to explore and expand their narratives. In her latest such project, Baichwal undertakes the ambitious task of cinematizing Payback, Margaret Atwood’s visionary book of essays about systems of wealth, justice, and reparation.
Seemingly disparate forays into the worlds of migrant tomato pickers in Florida, feuding clans in Albania, victims of BP’s oil spill, and a repentant inmate all mix with insights from thinkers like theologian Karen Armstrong, ecologist William Rees, public critic Raj Patel, and Atwood herself. Integrating Atwood’s words with their outlooks, Baichwal’s luxurious pacing, arresting imagery, and astonishing juxtapositions stimulate provocative associations among ideas and realities.
Both visceral and revelatory, Payback plunges us deeply into reconsidering the roots of social inequity, what we value, and debt’s profound role as an organizing principle in our lives—one that shapes relationships, society, and the fate of the planet. –Sundance Film Festival
Baichwal attempts to translate the ideas from an essay by Margaret Atwood into an examination of debt; both financial and personal and quite frankly fails miserably. Over=reaching to say the least as it tries to equate blood feuds, oil spills, migrant workers in Florida, prisoners and even Conrad Black into its examination. Atwood's concepts are sound but in trying to illustrate them Baichwal loses the message.
