Collapse (2009)
Bluemark Productions

Description

Americans generally like to hear good news. They like to believe that a new President will right old wrongs, that clean energy will replace dirty oil, and that fresh thinking will set the economy straight. American pundits tend to restrain their pessimism and to hope for the best. But is anyone prepared for the worst?

Michael Ruppert is a different kind of American. A former Los Angeles police officer turned independent reporter, he predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter “From the Wilderness” at a time when most Wall Street and Washington analysts were still in denial. Smith has always had a feeling for outsiders in films like “American Movie” and “American Job.” In “Collapse,” Smith stylistically departs from his past films by interviewing Ruppert in a format that recalls the work of Errol Morris and Spalding Gray.

Tags

Environment, Economy, Energy

Collected reviews and ratings

9.0 Row Three | Mike Rot

Collapse, though in part a character study, is more largely a persuasive argument that deserves exposure and healthy debate as perhaps the single most pressing issue any of us are going to face in our lifetimes. For me, it is easily the scariest film of 2009 and the high mark of my festival experience thus far.
Read full review (Cinema)

9.0 filmcritic.com | Alexander Zalben

Filmed in a basement, with lighting that recalls an interrogation, one man, Michael Ruppert, talks for an hour and half about how not just the economy is collapsing, but society as a whole. The footage of Ruppert is sparingly interrupted by bold white on black titles and occasionally covered by archival footage. The result is utterly transfixing, one of the most terrifying, hilarious, moving, and thrilling documentaries ever made.
Read full review (Cinema)

9.0 New York Times | Jeanette Catsoulis

His well-rehearsed rhetoric is shockingly persuasive, and since the majority of his premises are verifiable, any weakness in his argument lies in inferences so terrifying that reasonable listeners may find themselves taking his advice and stocking up on organic seeds.
Read full review (Cinema)

8.0 IndieWire | Anthony Kaufman

“Collapse” is composed entirely of the former LAPD officer and journalist talking, mainly about the inevitable end of society as we know it because of the planet’s limited resources. The film moves along briskly, with plenty of illustrative archival footage and Ruppert’s emphatic, arrogant and angry way with words.
Read full review (Cinema)

8.0 The Village Voice | Nicolas Rapold

Smith's interest in the underdog also lends a reserved sense of sympathy: By faithfully documenting Ruppert's long-simmering analysis, Smith lets us experience the feeling of a world gone to pot, whether or not the claims are factually accurate.
Read full review (Cinema)

8.0 allmovie | Kimber Myers

Chris Smith of American Movie fame has created an apocalyptic movie that is far more realistic in its predictions than any Hollywood production in memory. Collapse is the type of doom-and-gloom documentary that should have audiences running, but it's so masterfully made and riveting that it's impossible to look away.
Read full review (Cinema)