Remember that famous phrase of P.T. Barnum, “There is a sucker born every minute.” In the documentary “Good Life” there are many youthful suckers born. Take your choice of treating the film as a serious look into the minds of young entrepreneurs or a comedy exploring the gullibility of Musk and Branson wannabes. Many call themselves “founders”. Salespeople become brand ambassadors directed in the wrong direction by these brilliant founders. In an hilarious scene a schoolboy looking brand ambassador with a juvenile bag on his back making him so different from an old school merchant he is hustling has no pen or paper nor any business cards. He is criticized by the merchant for not having these basic tools as that is the way “we do business around here.” The poor kid is so clueless he says that he will give the merchant his number by entering it on his phone. He strikes me as naïve as the brilliant “founder” who creates a “wonderful” app that assembles “brand ambassadors” known by primitive capitalists as “salespeople”. Little schoolboy has lost any credibility he had if any.
This documentary focuses on a “tech farm” in Stockholm that sells space to 40 entrepreneurs in a large house. Like animals in an old east German circus, they live in “pods” as a “community”. All jammed together they can dream and scheme on how to be the next Branson or Musk. This tech farm is a start up itself looking to make a profit. It encourages its “residents” to dream as after all its investors need to make a return on their investment. Looks like young “founders” hustling wannabe founders. These hustling entrepreneurs dream of founding a hundred tech farms throughout the world. A virtual McDonalds of commodified ideology.
These “residents” think they are a blazing group of capitalists seeking their own liberation by enslaving a lesser breed of humans than themselves. Their ideas are hardly innovative and many are exploitative and childish such as create a casual workforce of eternal giggers rewarding their performance with points and prizes. Work in a corporation and feel the distaste of employees for such brazen and stupid manipulative tactics. I’ll leave it up to you to see how innovative these “residents” really are. Could it be they are “inmates” in a prison of their own minds?
This documentary has no answers but hints of suggesting resident delusion. It is up to you to determine if they are the wave of the future or cannon fodder for tech farm start up by its “founders”.
The film had its premiere at Toronto Hot Docs 2022.
You can see the trailer here https://vimeo.com/686623961
RKS Film Rating 90/100.
Directed and produced by Marta Dauliūté and Viktorja Šaiulyte.
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