Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Anarchists’ On HBO, A Docuseries About The Chaos That Ensues When The Government-Averse Descend Upon Acapulco

The Anarchists is a six-part docuseries, directed by Todd Schramke, that shows the progression of the anarchist movement and its effect on the Mexican resort city of Acapulco. When we talk about “anarchy” with regards to this group, we’re not talking about people in favor of lawless free-for-alls. No, these are generally peaceful people who think that self-rule is more effective and freeing than government rule. Schramke, who appears on-camera and narrates the docuseries, filmed the docuseries over six years, getting deeper into the movement as he went along.

THE ANARCHISTS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A beach bonfire. While it seems peaceful at first, we then see that it’s a group of people throwing in books of all sorts. The group includes their children.

The Gist: Schramke, in his reasearch, first focused in on Jeff Berwick, a leader in the anarchist movement who moved to Acapulco in the 2010s, intrigued not just by its beach resort vibe but by the fact that it seems that anything goes there. He founded a conference called Anarcapulco, which has grown exponentially since its start in 2015.

Berwick, however, was always more of a proselytizer and inspirational type rather than an organizational genius; he knew from his ’90s Silicon Valley days that he liked to create companies but not run them. So when he meets Lisa and Nathan Freeman, a couple who attended the first, highly disorganized Anarcapulco, they formed a partnership. The next conference was much better organized, attracted higher-profile speakers, and received sponsorship attention from cryptocurrency companies, among others that aligned with the anarchists’ government-averse messaging.

But as the movement grew, and an increasing number of anarchists found a home in Acapulco, the more the city attracted the “do whatever you want” types, including John Galton and Lily Forester, who arrived at the second Anarchapulco as fugitives, jumping bail after being hit with a raft of marijuana possession charges in Ohio.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The closest analogue to The Anarchists we can think of is Q: Into The Storm, and not just because both the anarchist movement and the people who believe in QAnon conspiracy theories both have a deep mistrust of government, but also because both docuseries examine rifts and rivalries in their respective movements.

Our Take: When we watched the first 40 or so minutes of episode one of The Anarchists, we rolled our eyes. We were thinking that this was going to be six episodes full of mostly white males railing against the government and showing people how to protect their money from the greedy fingers of the IRS and other agencies who levy taxes on us.

But when Schramke started telling the story of Galton and Forester, we saw where this docuseries was going. It’s not the story of this government-averse movement, but more of a story of how the people who planted the seeds of the movement in Acapulco ended up in conflict with the people that Anarchapulco attracted over its relatively brief existence.

On the one side, you have the purists like Berwick and the Freemans, who think of anarchy as escaping government control. On the other side you have Galton and Forester, who are closer to what the common view of anarchists is: People who want to do whatever they want.

What intrigued us in the final 15 minutes of the first episode is that Berwick and Lisa Freeman both expressed how the “crazy people” came to Acapulco, turning a situation where there was relative peace in to near chaos.

It also pushed the city itself into the spotlight; Schramke takes a few minutes in the first episode to examine how Acapulco went from being a glamorous resort for the rich and famous from the ’50s into the ’80s, to one of the most dangerous cities in the world, starting about 15 years ago. It’s a bit enraging when we see a video of Berwick and Nathan Freeman laughing off the city’s “bad reputation,” thinking that it’s safe for anyone not caught up in the cartel (which tells us that the anarchist movement might have more than a bit of bigotry running through it).

But by the end of the episode, we see Berwick saying that the city gives back tenfold what someone puts in. It’s a sign of someone who has been there awhile, seen how dangerous it can be for those who come there seeking to get away with something rather than join the movement, and has a bit more of a tempered view than the arrogant one we saw at the beginning of the episode.

That’s what we’re looking forward to seeing on The Anarchists. Not so much comeuppance, but just a view from folks like Berwick or the Freemans that there is no ideal society, as much as they tried to engineer one through Anarchapalooza. The bigger a movement gets, the more likely that there are going to be members of the movement that not only don’t get along, but openly cause problems. Showing that it’s no different than any other community or movement will bring more people into the series than if it was just a mostly favorable look at a fringe movement.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: “If you don’t ask yourself the right questions, you can end up dead,” says Forester.

Sleeper Star: In a way, it’s Schramke, for his ability to get the main people in this movement to trust him, let him in for six years and tell him the whole arc of this story.

Most Pilot-y Line: There’s a discussion about “unschooling,” which sounds reasonable on the surface, but also feels like something that can be practiced by people with means and time, which isn’t really discussed.

Our Call: STREAM IT. If The Anarchists were just about the movement itself, it would be boring and enraging. But because it’s about how the movement got infiltrated by people who made things increasingly chaotic and violent, we’re ready to see where the rest of the series goes.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.