Jan 16
International Film Forum: THE TRUE COST
The True Cost (Andrew Morgan, 2015, Bangladesh/USA/Cambodia/China/
Denmark/France/Haiti/India/Italy/Uganda/UK, 92 min.) – Palmar Alvarez Blanco
A distressing overview of the consequences of our addiction to fast fashion, The True Cost might suggest another exposé of corporate greed versus environmental well-being. That is certainly in evidence, but under the gentle, humane investigations of its director, Andrew Morgan, what emerges most strongly is a portrait of exploitation that ought to make us more nauseated than elated over those $20 jeans.
To learn who is paying for our bargains, Mr. Morgan dives to the bottom of the supply chain, to the garment factories of Cambodia and Bangladesh and the cotton fields of India, where he links ecological and health calamities to zealous pesticide use. Garment workers subsisting on less than $3 a day recount beatings by bosses who resent unionization and requests for higher wages. At the same time, a factory owner in Bangladesh — where the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza building caused more than 1,000 deaths — tells us candidly that when retailers squeeze him, he must squeeze his employees.” (Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times)