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| Our Brand Is Crisis | 
 enlarge | Director: Rachel Boynton
Actors: Carlos Mesa (ii), Stan Greenberg, Gonzalo Sanchez De Lozada, Jeremy Rosner, Henry Oporto
Studio: Koch Lorber Films
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.98
Buy New: $12.95
You Save: $17.03 (57%)
Buy New/Used from $9.75
Avg. Customer Rating:  (8 reviews)
Sales Rank: 28511
Format: Color, Content/copy-protected Cd, Dolby, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: Unrated
Media: DVD
Running Time: 87 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: KLF-DV3092
UPC: 741952309291
EAN: 0741952309291
ASIN: B000GDIBSO
Release Date: September 5, 2006
Theatrical Release Date: 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Description
A Film by Rachel BoyntonFor decades, U.S. strategists-for-hire have been quietly molding the opinions of voters and the messages of candidates in elections from the Middle East to the South American jungle. Our Brand is Crisis follows James Carville, Jeremy Rosner and a team of political consultants as they launch a media-savvy campaign for Bolivian presidential candidate Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. With unprecedented access to think sessions, media training and the making of smear campaigns, witness a shocking example of America "spreading democracy" overseas and its earth-shattering aftermath. "Momentous?astounding!" ? Laura Kern, The New York Times "a fascinating glimpse of the Americanized marketing of international politics" ? Premiere Magazine WINNER
International Documentary Association
IDA Award
Amazon.com
"We must own crisis and we must brand crisis." So says advertising consultant Tad Devine in this insightful documentary. Along with James Carville, Jeremy Rosner, and other Greenberg Carville Shrum (GCS) pollsters and strategists, he's helping to shape the campaign of Bolivian presidential candidate Gonzalo "Goni" Sanchez de Lozada of the MNR Party (Goni first held office from 1993-1997). That was in 2002. As with most American elections, things start off on a positive note and soon turn negative as the "crisis" changes from the economy to the competition, Evo Morales (the MAS Party) and Manfred Reyes Villa (the NFR Party). Goni's own campaign manager believes that his age and perceived "arrogance" are stumbling blocks (and possibly the cigar-smoking millionaire's wealth, since only the very rich can afford GCS). Rachel Boynton's debut feature tracks the process from start to finish: 100+ days of brainstorming sessions, focus groups, and television appearances. It's The War Room, Part II: The Bolivian Years. Unfortunately, Bolivia is not America and Goni is not Bill Clinton. The violent anti-government riots that break out in 2003, as the country's economy remains in tatters, bring to mind the old saw, "Be careful what you wish for..." In the end, it's easy to demonize GCS, but Boynton doesn't point fingers--with a true populist like Clinton, their plan just might have worked. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
The lessons from this informative DVD July 13, 2008
The lessons I see in this DVD include:
- The sheer arrogance of the US campaign advisors who have no qualms about 'helping' Bolivia by pushing who will win the election. These are people who seem to think that because they have skills in PR, they're justified however they're used. It's all 'part of the game'. They're far more lacking in judgement about who should be elected, even if they show they are able to 'believe' they are helping.
- That's the greater lesson - contrasting their self-righteous efforts how important it is to get their guy in office, with what happens.
Oh, gee, they were completely wrong, and effectively an enemy of the people's interests, who'd a thunk? Oh, well, next country.
- The beauty of actual democracy in action when the people of Bolivia fight against the president's bad policies. We could learn a lot.
- The unanswered question raised be seeing just how dangerously effective these 'campaign technques' are, how they are the enemy of democracy.
It's a valuable video for an insider glance rarely seen.
Worth seeing if these lessons are of interest.
Our brand is Crisis July 1, 2008
The documentary of Bolivian policy is simply a contemporary situation that makes this video as a good sample of ongoing affair in many Latin American countries.
 It's about US! June 28, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
While I consider myself better informed than average on Central and South American politics, I didn't know that much about the elections of the early 2000s in Bolivia. I have asserted that the leftward swing there of the last few years was because of the way we Yanks have treated those countries. So true.
But I realized while watching this gem that the issue addressed by the film is as much about us as it is about those other countries!
As others have pointed out, Greenberg, Carville and Schrum, a well-known Washington political consulting (classy way of saying PR) firm was hired by Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada--aka Goni--to get him elected president of Bolivia. He'd been brought up in the United States--suburban Washington, DC, while his father was exiled. He'd been president of Bolivia for a term in the 1990s, had, according to the film, set up some social programs, e.g., Social Security, and had provided some reforms to education. But he had also "capitalized." That term wasn't really defined until toward the end of the film when I believe the word used was "privatized."
Well, GCS did what such a consultant does here in the US: They had their pollsters following Bolivian trends, gave one-liners and effective rhetoric to Goni, set up countless "focus groups," instituted negative campaigning, e.g., made Goni's opponents look like budding fascists, or out of touch with reality--something that's become commonplace here in the US. In short, they avoided facing any issues, those which make democracy work--again, something of which many in the US know pathetically little.
Indeed, Goni's opponents were far more populist than Goni was. The people--you know, those pests who tend to get on the nerves of our fearless political elites--were demanding constitutional change, even representation. Goni ignored those issues, while his consultants advised him to stick to his principals, what he believed was better for the company.
Well, to make a long story short, after 14 months and lots of demonstrations, and deaths of demonstrators, Goni was forced to resign where he became a neighbor of mine here in the DC area. Probably the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back was his sale of the country's natural gas reserves with no input from the people of his country. His VP tried to take a more moderate approach, but was also forced to resign when he couldn't find a happy medium to meet the people's nees and those of foreign investors. So eventually one of Goni's opponents, whose name escapes me now, was elected as Bolivia's first indigenous president.
The film focused on Goni's not having a majority--he got about 22 percent of the vote while his opponents each got about 21 percent--as the source of the problem. But I argue that the major problem rather was that the election relied in image and superficial message--the standard tactics of public relations--rather than political issues, again, that which makes democracy what it is! And that I blame on GCS! (Indeed, I had more respect for James Carville before seeing the film than I did after.) Carville and his associates spent the last 10 minutes of the film trying to rationalize the disaster that Bolivia became, and the reinforces my belief that the disaster was more their fault, based on the angles they took, than that of anything else.
And our "democracy" is obviously failing for the same reason: too many not voting on issues but on one liners, slogans, PR campaigns as much negative as positive. So while jobs are disappearing--as they had in Bolivia--people are talking about Rev. Wright, gay marriage, and whatever devil terms can be created to distract us from what really happens.
Shame on those who've reduced campaigns to that level, whether hired by the GOP or Democrats. All your rationalizing isn't going to make your actions any more ethical.
GONI CABRON June 9, 2007
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
The political campaign-consultant firm of Greenberg-Carville-Shrum are hired to help neoliberal Gonzalo Sanchez se Lozada squeak through in the '02 presidential election in Bolivia.
As is the real problem with the U.S. Democratic Party in recent years, these consultants (who are famous US Democrats) end up pushing a Washington Consensus program on poor Bolivia. Goddamned DLC Democrats are to the right of what mainstream GOP were a generation ago!
This is why the documentary is titled as it is. These Washington Consensus whores really care only about hefty fees they'll be paid for their expertise, rather than assisting in promotion of the well-being of the majority of Bolivians. "Our Brand" is nothing other than a product to be sold.
So, by default they end up pushing the candidate of the wealthy minority, because a genuine statesman such as Evo Morales would not stoop to have himself marketed as a product. And it's probably also true that these DLC Dems actually agree on issues more with de Lozada than they do Morales.
So, they get to pimp de Lozada, get paid handsomely for doing so, and even sleep at night (?).
"We are going to win this election if we choose the right frame. The frame for us is crisis. We must brand crisis" February 16, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
"Our Brand Is Crisis" (2005) is an extremely interesting documentary that tells us about the campaign of Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada to become president of Bolivia. How did he become president, and why did he decide to "brand crisis" in order to run a successful campaign? What role did the American political strategists he hired played in the 2003 Bolivian elections? And what ended up going wrong, after he was elected? The answers to those questions, and more, can be found in this dvd.
I would like to highlight the fact that this documentary is made out of real life footage of meetings between Sanchez de Lozada and his advisors (before, during and after the campaign), and also contains some footage of the events that led to his resignation. This is not fiction, but reality, and that is one of the reasons why it is so illuminating.
I believe that this dvd should be seen by those who are interested in political campaigns, political advertising or mass media, but also by the kind of people who like to watch an engaging documentary that helps them to understand the world we live in. "Our Brand Is Crisis" shows us that a presidential candidate is promoted in more or less the same way a product is advertised. However, if you buy the wrong product you can always return it. If you choose a president that is not good for your country because you believe what a wonderful advertising campaign designed through polls tells you, your country suffers.
All in all, I am very happy I watched this dvd. It is the kind of documentary that you don't forget, and that gives you food for thought. Highly recommended!
Belen Alcat
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