You think you have problems.
Documentaries are great for teaching perspective. More often than not it's the perspective of deplorable things happening in our backyard and around the world. This makes the newly released The Queen of Versailles even more fascinating in that it's a documentary shining a light on the recent global recession from the vantage point of the one per cent.
The documentary begins with David and Jackie Siegel in Orlando building the largest house in the United States. Scenes of absolutely offensive opulence abound while planning a home that has more services than all of Squamish. Halfway through filming, the recession takes a huge bite out of David's billion-dollar timeshare business that sells middle-class families vacations they can't afford.
This is where the documentary turns amazing as director Lauren Greenfield actually makes you feel for these people. David and Jackie themselves started as "ordinary" people chasing the American (i.e. money=happiness) Dream and found themselves wealthy beyond their wildest imagination, because nobody grows up dreaming of having 30+ bathrooms in their house. Even so, there is an undeniable satisfaction in seeing billionaires taste even a tiny bit of "reality."
It's a spectacle to the end and it is no small triumph to persuade viewers who are likely wondering how they're going to pay for groceries feel empathy for people who have struck rock bottom because they don't have anyone to drive their limo to McDonald's.
All this and more at Highland Video, the best/last video store on Earth.
