Cover Story: This land is your land

As all-American values continue to erode and the 2004 presidential election approaches, documentary filmmaking is beginning to take on a new urgency, from Michael Moore’s controversial anti-Bush agitprop Fahrenheit 9/11 to the wake-up America, your waistline is calling Super Size Me.

On a more modest scale comes the 21st-century version of the soapbox rant at the town square. This Land Is Your Land is a take-back-your-country plea that makes a fairly good case for how far America has strayed from the ideals laid down by its founding fathers, and the radicalism of seminal anti-corporate acts like the Boston Tea Party. America, it seems, has sold its soul to the dollar. But little comic touches from directors Lori Cheatle and Daisy Wright affirm that we may be too far gone to know it. Even when they’re playing The Man’s game, Americans seem to think they’re fighting the power. As the girl in an Old Navy T-shirt and a Nike baseball cap says, with all the conviction of a trained monkey, “I’m just going to be myself and not this walking, talking billboard.” Rage on, sista.

This Land Is Your Land’s most troubling assertion is how government by the people, for the people has been transformed into government by MCI, Starbucks and Nike. America’s self-identity is being slowly and insidiously colonized by corporate branding, a point illustrated by the corporate sponsorship of a small-town Independence Day parade, where every banner carries a Pepsi logo. Arguing that America is essentially a nation of rebels and iconoclasts, this anecdotal documentary follows a quirky cross-section of citizens resisting their country’s occupation by corporate agendas. Though its crazy-quilt pattern often gives the film an unfocused, catchall feel, it also captures some of Americans’ feistiness busting out in unexpected places.

In the film’s survey of small pockets of resistance, a Harlem small-business owner fights an onslaught of strip mall chain stores. And a Russian orthodox monk, who uses the words “Christmas blend” to sell the monastery’s coffee, is sued by Starbucks, which now apparently holds a copyright on Christmas. In such revealing moments, the filmmakers provide a convincing, infuriating picture of strong-armed corporate bullies claiming proprietary control over every nook and cranny of American life.

This Land Is Your Land screens June 18 at 6:30 p.m., Atlanta-Fulton Public Library, and June 20 at 2:30 p.m., Rialto Center.