It's Monday aka blog release time, this one isn't about what I have bought or project I am working on, this is about a film I watched during some down time I had this weekend after a rather tense week.
So, I'm going to talk about the film that I watched for the first time on Sunday GREED. I'm not sure if you have watched it but it's about a "fictional" character who is a high street clothing retailer that constantly buys and then dissolves his companies or sells them for very little once he has used them up / written as much debt for personal gain / dividends. He uses slave labour and overseas workers at sweat shops where he can pay them as little as possible. To try and recoup the respect he throws a ridiculous OTT party in Greece where he decides to reenact Gladiator and at this party it shows that he has very little respect for the refugees on the public beach, the workers he has hired, animals and even his family. Not that I want to ruin it for you but he basically ends up being killed by a lion and his arrogant son takes over and ends up being an even worse person with little respect for what he is doing the impact he has on the world and who gets hurt.
THE DEVIL IS IN THE RETAIL
Some say, that the story is based on Philip Green aka Arcadia Group aka Topshop, Dorothy Perkins etc. and this would make a lot of sense as Mr Green is known for his selling of BHS to a pal for £1 and despite leaving the business in £1.3 billon in debt he and has family still managed to take out £586m in dividends. 11,000 people lost their jobs and Mr Green was going to be stripped of his knighthood but he paid £363m into the pension scheme meaning that the hard workers weren't entirely out of pocket. He has also been accused of using sweatshop workers and knowing of their poor working conditions and minor pay, which this film does highlight greatly including the reason at to why he is killed by a lion.
Now, granted the acting isn't amazing and the whole point of the film is to bring to light what high street retailer tycoons are possibly doing / affecting to mass produce the clothing that they churn out and not enough focus was on it, but regardless actors such as Steve Coogan and Isla Fisher would have still had known what they were getting into before signing up to this and the film was still released, which even though the reviews aren't great its a huge step in the film industry.
I was going to rewrite the facts they listed at the end of the film regarding garment works and their minuscule pay and poor conditions but I urge you to watch this film for you to see for yourself.
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