British journalists who want to print libellous statements have never needed to check whether their reports are true, only to ask: how rich is the victim? A billionaire? Watch out. A postman? No problem. You can't get legal aid for libel cases, so the results are foregone: the rich win, the poor lose. Or at least, that was the case before a super-wealthy corporation tangled with a pair of individuals who were penniless but principled.
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Franny Armstrong
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One of the most extraordinary cases in British legal history is brilliantly dissected in Franny Amstrong's McLibel, a feature-length documentary that turns a 15-year-long legal saga into a captivating, funny and disturbing 85 minutes of fly-on-the-wall drama.
The young filmmaker could not have wished for a more absorbing story than that of Helen
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the multinational had been able to intimidate everyone who criticised them
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Steel and Dave Morris, two gloriously ordinary and uncharismatic people, a gardener and a postman, who stood their ground against McDonald's Corporation. Till they came along, the multinational had been able to intimidate everyone who criticised them into backing down and offering fulsome apologies even the BBC, the Guardian and Channel Four television had crumpled. But Steel and Morris would not, saying: Its McDonalds that should apologise to society. Jamie Oliver would surely agree.
But the film isnt about hamburgers. The real service it provides is in documenting just how
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it allowed British law to be used by multinational corporations to silence citizens
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Steel and Morriss case is leading to a key change in British law. Their fight may have begun in London but it ended in Strasbourg this February at the European Court of Human Rights with the British government as their target because of the way it allowed British law to be used by multinational corporations to silence citizens who had legitimate criticisms.
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Helen Steel and Dave Morris © Karen Robinson
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A lengthy courtroom drama without sex or violence sounds like grim viewing, but Armstrong's eye for detail, astonishingly wide range of sources and her increasingly-famous ability to get people to tell their own stories makes a compelling package: this is what reality TV should be all about. Despite McLibel's fast-moving, multi-layered, post-millennium style, the story is never lost and the tone remains calm and intelligent. A landmark documentary and essential viewing.
Showing at Odeon Wardour Street, London, from 17 February for one week: 0871 2244007. Then around the UK. McLibel website
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Nury Vittachi
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Nury Vittachi is a novelist based in Hong Kong
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