It's rare at Hot Docs to attend a screening of a poor film. Unfortunately, Encirclement: Neo-Liberalism Ensnares Democracy had a good premise, to explain the origins and rise of neo-liberalism and how it is affecting us today, but failed miserably to deliver a satisfying movie on the topic. This 3 hour black-and-white film consisted of a series of interviews with unidentified people (well, there was a list at the beginning of the many people that were going to be interviewed, with no affiliation given, but there were no captions to identify who was speaking at any given time and where they were from). The filmmaker didn't seem to have been told that there was now technology to edit films, so that you could actually remove repetitive, redundant content.
There was a moment to leave at half way when they changed the DVDs, and I made my hasty exit along with many others. Each Hot Docs ticket is designed so that you can tear it to mark your rating of 1 to 5 on the film; there's a prize awarded to the highest audience-rated film. I guess I voted with my feet, but I was wishing for a zero on that 1-5 scale!
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