The Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck won wide acclaim in the U.S. in 2001 with the release of Lumumba, a panoramic depiction of the life of Patrice Lumumba, the first president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who was overthrown and assassinated by Joseph Mobutu (Mobutu Sese Seko) with CIA assistance. Before making one of the first feature-length, Western-style films about the era of Africa's emergence from colonial rule, Peck concentrated on documentaries, including an earlier film on Lumumba. His most recent documentary, Profit And Nothing But!, has just been made available in the U.S. In it, Peck uses the harsh reality of Haiti's place in the global economy as real world evidence to support intellectual critiques of the capitalist system provided by the economists and other social scientists who are interviewed throughout the film. The result is a complete and thought-provoking analysis of the current global economic system, and the poverty it inflicts on so much of the world's population.

The film begins with an exploration of today's economic realities. "Capital has won; capital has swept the board . . . moreover, it has succeeded in convincing most of its opponents that their failure was in the nature of things." As the narrator speaks, images of the poverty of Haiti roll across the screen. The backdrop of rural Haiti makes this victory of capitalism seem undeniable. The narration intones, "Though it is victorious in the sense that it is the dominant economic system, capitalism's victory is anything but glorious."

"Particularly in a country like Haiti, how can such a thing as triumphant capitalism exist?" asks Gerald Marthurin, one of the six social scientists, whose subtitled interviews (conducted in French) make up the much of the film. "Triumphant over what?" he continues, "Capitalism's triumph is self-declared - because it got rid of misery in the west. That's triumphing too - at the expense of others. In Haiti, where misery rules on a daily basis, how can one speak of triumphant capitalism - it doesn't mean anything in Haiti. All you have in Haiti is gross inequality between the majority - who have nothing - and the rich minority. Where is the triumph here?"

Over the course of Profit And Nothing But! scenes of rural Haiti and interviews with Haitian street vendors and craftspeople are intermixed with intellectual critiques of capitalism. The scenes of Haiti show us first hand the devastation that global capitalism inflicts upon "developing nations," while the interviews with economists logically refute the idea the capitalism will benefit any but the fortunate few. Speaking over much of the footage of Haitian poverty, the narrator makes the absurdity of capitalism clear. "Forty billion dollars is the estimated amount required to satisfy the planet's basic needs … or 4% of the world's 200 largest fortunes." The images make the narrator's conclusions about the country evident: "Like two-thirds of the planet, we [the Haitian people] have been sold for a handful of dollars."

By showing us the destitute poverty which the a global capitalist system condemns the majority of the earth's population to, and by also providing us with high-caliber intellectual criticism of capitalism as a viable economic system, Raoul Peck shows us in very real and identifiable terms why another world is necessary. His film provides important insight into the realities of today's global economy, and does so in a manner that is simple in its explanation, yet far-reaching in its conclusions. Raoul Peck has produced an excellent work, which serves as a valuable tool for any and all who question the validity of capitalism as a satisfactory global economic system. Though accessible to all, the film is clearly intended for an audience interested in issues of international trade, corporate globalization, the global capitalist system, and the resultant poverty.

Profit And Nothing But!: Directed by Raoul Peck; distributed by First Run/Icarus Films, (718) 488-8900