Wal-Mart Gets Bad Rap in Hit Film

It has been dismissed as a propaganda video by its target but a new film threatens to cause the kind of public relations headache for supermarket giant Wal-Mart that Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me did for McDonald’s.

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, a polemic broadside against the hugely profitable practices of the US retail behemoth, has captivated audiences and influential European distributors at the Berlin film festival, where it was screened over the weekend.

Directed, produced and partly funded by Robert Greenwald, who also made Outfoxed, a documentary attacking the bias of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel, the $1.8m (£1.03m) film gained only a limited release in cinemas across the US. But amid growing disquiet about the real cost of cheap supermarket produce, it has sold 110,000 DVDs since November and was quickly snapped up by distributors in Britain, Germany and Australia.

Critics and influential Hollywood figures, such as the director Rob Reiner, have praised the film, part of the flourishing genre of low-budget, highly political documentaries revived by the likes of Michael Moore, while unions have supported free screenings of the film in schools and community halls across the US.

"Wal-Mart is the poster child for the worst in corporate behavior," Greenwald said after his film was warmly received in Berlin. "But it is not only Wal-Mart, it is these issues that affect all of us all around the world."

Wal-Mart, which has a turnover of £160bn and employs 1.5 million workers around the world, has come out fighting, attacking its arguments, instructing staff in its stores how to respond to the film, and even promoting a rival free-market documentary: Why Wal-Mart Works and Why That Makes Some People Crazy.

"Let’s be clear about Mr Greenwald’s intent: it is not to present a fair and accurate portrayal of Wal-Mart," the retailer said in a statement last year. "It is a propaganda video designed to advance a narrow special interest agenda."

Telling the personal stories of employees and small businesses caught in the shadow of the US retail behemoth, Greenwald’s documentary accuses Wal-Mart of paying breadline wages without adequate health cover for its staff and argues that it destroys the fabric of small towns by killing off rival businesses with discount prices. The action briefly moves to Britain, where Asda was bought by Wal-Mart in 1999. The film features an east London fruit stallholder fighting Asda’s plans to demolish the historic Queen’s Market and redevelop the site in Upton Park.

Greenwald, who also produced a trilogy of films on George Bush coming to power and the war in Iraq, said he could not think of another company as aggressive in its exploitation of people as the US giant. "Wal-Mart is abusive in ways that other corporations that are committed to profits are not," he said.

"They have a culture that says it’s OK to do anything as long as it’s good for profits. It’s OK not to give employees health insurance. It’s OK to take money away from communities to build Wal-Marts."

The film is expected to be released in Britain in April.