
The Emperor's New Clothes is a pretty hard hitting political documentary, but it strives to be relatable to the average layman. As Brand says at the opening of the film, ‘everything you see in this film, you already know.’ The film addresses issues on employment, housing, austerity measures, benefit cuts, tax evasion (both offshore and international), police brutality and especially the disaster which is our current banking system.

The film uses great statistics, with huge quantities of money which represent the disparity in our society. It makes the audience fully aware of the fact that these are changing. Brand as Narrator illustrates the increase in the numbers from the time of filming to the time of release, to show that the issues in the film are only getting worse. There are also great comparisons between our current problems, such as the Housing Deficit, and possible solutions, such as the FDR New Deal in America.
The Emperors’ New Clothes is not just a tale of the deceit in society, it’s also a well for solutions. There are a large number of groups involved in the filming, including unions representing workers for Asda, Tesco, Warburtons, Cadbury, representatives of smaller companies which have been taken over by private agencies and most noticeably the New Era Estate group. Brand and Winterbottom appear to be pressing for better representation of these smaller factions in the hopes that this will inspire a greater and true community, in contrast the Tory slogan of ‘We are all in this together,’ which is parodied throughout the whole film.

It may just be the timing, but the end of the film seemed to leave a lot of people questioning whether they could be ticking Russel Brands’ name in the ballot box in a couple of weeks. This was a question which seemed answered by the entirety of the following Q&A.
Initially Brand appeared disinterested by the entire thing. He appeared distracted, did not look at any of the people asking questions, and was outright abrasive towards the cinema spokesperson. However this may well be explained by his revolutionary nature, as he stated in the beginning ‘Michael keeps telling me to stop revolutionising against myself, sometimes I go against my own Youtube channel!’ Which makes sense, as an anti-establishment, anti-systemic character, and an intelligent one at that, Brand has enough perspective to see the hypocrisy of his current situation. This film is meant to interest people to go against the capitalist system and to realise their full potential as a community, as a society, yet to do so Brand has to implement the machinery of the system to get his message out. Marketing and advertisement is the soul of capitalism, and that’s what this Q&A was all about. Give the man merit, he did ensure that Michael was on stage with him, and he was very happy to give a voice to all the groups involved.

The Emperor's New Clothes is an incredibly illuminating piece of work. It does a great deal towards suggesting solutions to the problems we see printed on tabloids every day. Everybody will learn something new from watching it.
The Emperor's New Clothes will have a limited release this Friday. Oxfam are also hosting community nominated screenings which can be voted for via ourscreen.com