SECRETS OF SILICON VALLEY A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2001 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow's SECRETS OF SILICON VALLEY tries without much luck to be a hard-hitting exposé of the plight of low income workers in the Silicon Valley. A frustrating film, it is more memorable for its unasked questions than for the answers it receives.
Typical of the unchallenged assertions is the one that the reason that unions have had almost no success in the Silicon Valley is that the unions are afraid of the big corporations. General Motors is no mom-and-pop operation, and the union has had tremendous success organizing its workers in Michigan. Could it be instead that assembly line workers here in the Silicon Valley generally like their jobs and are happy to have them? (I have a close relative who works on a high tech assembly line. She likes her job and is only frustrated on the days when there isn't enough to do.)
The documentary, which is told without narration, interviews two main subjects, Magda Escobar and Raj Jayadev. Escobar runs a non-profit computer training center in East Palo Alto. Although she worries about the digital divide between the rich and poor, the filmmakers concentrate much of the time on her thoughts on the changes in the poor town of East Palo Alto, where new stores from Home Depot to McDonalds are changing the business landscape. The savviest thing that Escobar does is to create a giant mural outside her group's new facility. When President Clinton wants just the right photo op, his team picks it for one of his pop-in-and-pop-out visits. Jessie Jackson shows up too, so that he can be part of the group which seems to be more media than public.
In the more controversial part, Jayadev, an employee of Manpower who works on temporary assignment at HP, talks about alleged health and safety issues on the printer packaging assembly line. After circulating a petition among his fellow workers, he is let go by Manpower, a dismissal which he claims was because of his safety issues complaints. Whether any of his assertions have merit, we have little idea since he is the only one interviewed about them.
Interspersed with the interviews of these two principals, the documentary shows footage of the famous Sand Hill Challenge, a soap box derby of sorts for venture capital firms and high tech companies. Escobar's company partners with a VC firm on one of the cars. Also included is stock television news footage of various technology leaders like Carly Fiorina, HP's CEO. "This is a growth industry, and there is no end to the growth in sight," she tells the camera. Well, no end, but lots of hiccups along the way as we have so recently been reminded as the economy as gone into a stall.
A documentary should teach or provoke, preferably both. It is hard to figure out what SECRETS OF SILICON VALLEY has to say to us that we didn't already know. Jayadev does rile us up some, but mainly because the filmmakers don't challenge him more or ask some pointed question to those he is accusing.
SECRETS OF SILICON VALLEY runs 1:00. It is not rated but would be a G and acceptable for all ages.
Web: <http://www.InternetReviews.com>
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com
Want free reviews and weekly movie and video recommendations via Email? Just send me a letter with the word "subscribe" in the subject line.
========== X-RAMR-ID: 28778 X-RT-AuthorID: 1271 X-RT-RatingText: 2.5/4
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews