Global Haywire
Global Haywire, documentary/animation movie by Bruce Petty, 80 minutes, rated M
We don’t usually do movies here at stagenoise but this one has to be the exception to the rule: Global Haywire is not only a brilliant, scary, hilarious and mind-expanding work of art, it also features a cast of millions (dead and alive) including Robyn Nevin, Barry Otto, Tariq Ali, George Monbiot, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal and some extremely articulate students, of Middle Eastern origin, among others.
In case you’ve been snoozing for the past 30 or 40 years, you’ll need to know that Bruce Petty is one of the finest cartoonists and satirical artists in the world. He’s been working forever and he won an Oscar in 1977 for Leisure (best animated short film). He has been working on Global Haywire for some years and when you see it, you can understand why.
In this film he goes about explaining in drawings of many syllables why our globe has gone haywire. Well, not the globe exactly, more its inhabitants. If you’ve been wondering why everything has gone to hell in recent times, let Bruce take you ungently by the hand and lead you back through the history of the 20th century. Then you’ll figure it out.
Terrorism? Nukes? Poverty? Rage? Pollution? Religious lunacy? Political lunacy? Too many fat people and even more skinny people? Global Haywire takes all these vexing questions and their even more vexing causes, mixes them with some of the most acerbic humour this side of a Petty still cartoon and cooks up one of the most entertaining and important movies in a long time.
We’re accustomed to thinking Mike Moore has the sole rights to political satire and exposition. Well ha – Global Haywire makes Moore look like a clodhopping blunderbuss by comparison. Petty (and his team of collaborators including son Sam) mix news footage, live animation, cartoons, live performances and a linking story-telling voice over from Tom (Dr Who) Baker to examine what’s gone wrong
In charge of the investigation is Robyn Nevin as the chair of an international committee which has been established to look into the matter. And no better choice could have been made: she peers over her specs in a chilling if bewildered fashion as befits a befuddled bureaucrat. Meanwhile, further down the table, Barry Otto flutters in genuine befuddlement as he competes with cut-outs and cartoons for air time.
Other human luminaries have an easier time of it as they simply respond to questions and are allowed to be themselves: Monbiot is intense and articulare, Ali’s Paki-English drawl is now almost a cartoon character in itself; while Chomsky is the closest thing to God we have these days and does it very well indeed. And Gore Vidal is Gore Vidal, of course.
In flight above all this however is the amazing mind, wit, wisdom, compassion and visual facility of Bruce Petty. The man is a bona fide genius and to sit through just 80 minutes of his imagination is exhilarating.
