There is, unquestionably, information here of which every coffee drinker should be made aware, writes Donald Clarke
Focusing on one Tadesse Meskela, the articulate, committed representative of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Co-op, as he seeks to forward the interests of Ethiopian growers, Black Gold highlights the stark disparity between the price of a cup of coffee in, say, Starbucks and the sum paid to the farmers for the beans to make it. The film also has interesting things to say about the way the world's larger nations - and the EU - exclude developing nations from discussions as to the price of the raw product.
Meskela (whose faultless and lucid English is, bafflingly, subtitled) emerges as an admirable figure. Whether hawking his clients' goods at coffee conventions or hosting meetings in dusty parts of the Horn of Africa, he maintains a positive attitude and never resorts to cheap sloganeering. This is all the more impressive when you consider the gross iniquities detailed in the course of the film.
That noted, one feels a little churlish pointing out that this is a pretty mediocre documentary. If you thought you would never tire of the political film-maker's timeless gambit in which shots of Third World workers are juxtaposed with snatched glimpses of fat Americans consuming their products, then Black Gold may be the film to finally wear you down.
The sequences shot at a barista competition and the first-ever Starbucks certainly discover some impressively trivial personalities. But one can't help but think that Michael Moore - who, for all his infelicities, is a talented montage artist - would have made something much funnier of all this corporate vacuity. Moore would also, presumably, have found a way to avoid conveying so much technical information through endless white titles on endless black backgrounds.
Still, Black Gold has its heart in the right place and can only have a positive influence on those seeing it. Just make sure the coffee being sold in the cinema foyer is Fair Trade.
