Hank Paulson is more or less remembered as the face of the 2008 financial crisis in the U.S. He was the secretary of treasury of the Bush administration. He pulled some of the unsexiest moves to avoid another great depression, moves that may have something to do with the government lockdown the United States are currently dealing with. He's not a well-liked person. To me, he is the embodiment of evil. Creatively, that also makes him fascinating. Director Joe Berlinger, the man behind the PARADISE LOST trilogy and BROTHER'S KEEPER, thought the same thing. HANK : 5 YEARS FROM THE BRINK is a deceptively simple film about deceptively complicated questions. Consider it the evil twin of Errol Morris' THE FOG OF WAR.
HANK : 5 YEARS FROM THE BRINK will anger a lot of viewers, because it's not trying to demonize Hank Paulson. By that, I mean it's ACTIVELY not trying to skate around difficult questions and find him redeeming traits. It ommits great details to keep its subjects comfortable and willing to participate. For example, that Paulson was an major player in the abusive housing market bubble and when he liquidated his stocks in 2006 to join the Bush administration, he made 492 million dollars! That very important fact was obfuscated in HANK : 5 YEARS FROM THE BRINK, to concentrate on his role in the containment of the 2008 financial crisis. It's an interesting decision to take, because Joe Berlinger clearly took the difficult decision to making a good movie.
But here's the thing. Granted that I already was educated about the 2008 financial crisis, Paulson taught me a little more about it. Especially about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two cornerstone companies that more or less triggered the crisis once they started being in trouble. I didn't know they were public companies created by passed presidents to promote home ownership in America. I didn't know Fannie Mae was part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. That changed my perception of the role these companies played during this major fiasco. I'm not so sure anymore if they were active in the bubble or if they were just abused commodities by greedy bankers. One way or another, somebody didn't do his job over there, but Paulson's details about their involvement shifted my perception of them quite a bit.
THE FACE OF EVIL!!!
Another baffling aspect of HANK : 5 YEARS FROM THE BRINK is how theoretical the whole crisis situation seems to Paulson. Don't get me wrong, it would be theoretical tor me too if I had enough money to buy a solid gold manor, but it speaks on the nature of evil. The calm and the self-satisfaction Paulson spoke with reminded me of the Nuremberg trials where the war criminals didn't seem to understand what they had done wrong. Not only Paulson doesn't seem to realize he's responsible for thousands of Americans losing their home, he doesn't seem to understand (or maybe he just blocks out) that their life savings are in his freakin' bank account. Hank Paulson lives in a world where normal people are just a series of number on a paper sheet, in a stack of paper sheets in his office. He never met met them. He never crosses them on the street. Normal people don't really exist for Hank Paulson.
While I was not convinced at first about HANK : 5 YEARS FROM THE BRINK, the general portrait it drew is compelling. The domestic bits narrated by Paulson's wife Wendy don't have much interest on their own, but juxtaposed to Paulson's narration of the crisis and my preexisting knowledge of the issue, it helped exposing the distorted portrait of reality the couple lived in. Their sheltered worries. Don't watch HANK : 5 YEARS FROM THE BRINK and expect being ulcerated. It'll be a frustrating viewing experience if you do. Joe Berlinger's latest is an exercise in creating nuances and exposing the inner workings of injustice and inequality. It's somewhat a master class for those interested in the 2008 financial crisis.