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Michael Moore shows off his kinder, gentler side in the new film ‘Where to Invade Next’

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For a notorious rabble-rouser and publicity hound, Michael Moore has kept a pretty low profile during the Obama presidency. The issues that animate Moore haven’t disappeared, but from Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter to the Democratic presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, the social justice movement has no shortage of other megaphones these days.

The Oscar-winning director, whose “Fahrenheit 9/11” (2004) remains the highest-grossing documentary of all time, explained his relative scarceness by saying he “just wanted to unplug from the noise.”

“I’m tired of all that,” he added, referring to the pressures of social media and the Hollywood publicity machine. “I’m a filmmaker. I want to focus on my art.”

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The product of his renewed focus, and his first feature since 2009’s “Capitalism: A Love Story,” is the playful and idealistic “Where to Invade Next,” which opens Wednesday for a weeklong Oscar-qualifying run (wide release is scheduled for Feb. 12).

Though the project’s initial secrecy and cheeky title suggest that “Where to Invade Next” is a polemic about America’s military-industrial complex, Moore’s latest is actually an episodic travelogue, following the self-appointed ambassador as he “invades” various countries in Europe and North Africa, “stealing” their most humane public policy ideas — an equal rights amendment for women, free college education, drug decriminalization — and “claiming” them for the United States.

Despite this central gimmick, the movie’s sentiments are surprisingly sincere and even buoyant.

“I spend the two hours not showing you all the problems,” Moore said, “but showing you the solutions.”

“Where to Invade Next” may lack “Fahrenheit 9/11’s” gravitas, but it has resonated with the film academy’s documentary branch, which recently named it one of 15 movies shortlisted for the feature documentary Oscar, out of 124 submissions. The final five nominees will be announced Jan. 14.

“Of all the movies that came out in 2015, it’s the one that I would most like all Americans to see,” said Thom Powers, the documentary programmer who selected “Where to Invade Next” for its Toronto International Film Festival premiere.

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By design, Moore’s brisk, inquisitive world tour largely sidesteps partisan politics. “Obviously, the politics of the film align themselves very closely to Bernie [Sanders],” he said, “but one of the main points of the film is that [in] countries where women have the power, or share the power, people are much better off.”

He added: “I think this film is painted on a much broader canvas than the specifics of who’s running for office this year. I made an epic film. My idea was to basically make a film about the United States without shooting a single frame of film in the United States.”

Though Moore toned down his brash, jokey antics in such films as 2007’s “Sicko,” which examined the U.S. healthcare system, they’re front and center again in the new movie, where he plays the role of a callow innocent abroad.

He acknowledged a Stephen Colbert-style comic strategy of “pretending to be the American exceptionalist,” but also insisted that “it’s not a persona. When we’re filming, I tell the producers that I don’t want to know much about anything… When the Italian couple tells me that they get 15 days’ paid vacation for their honeymoon, the look on my face is real. I’m hearing that for the first time.”

Because Moore’s films often double as advocacy campaigns, he’s in the unusual position of having made financially and critically successful movies that have failed at their policy aims. “Fahrenheit 9/11” didn’t unseat President George W. Bush, and “Bowling for Columbine” didn’t move the needle on gun control.

“You could open that film tonight, in theaters across America, and it would look like I made it in the last few months,” Moore said of “Columbine.” “This is a sad, sad thing to say.”

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According to Powers, Moore’s cinematic legacy is not strictly political. His success has brought “a new ambition to documentary filmmakers, a recognition that the films they’re making could reach much wider audiences,” Powers said. “The No. 1 achievement of Michael Moore is that he gave license for documentary films to be entertaining.”

Moore’s films have been criticized for their pronounced and often simplistic liberal rhetoric, but the onetime editor of Mother Jones magazine doesn’t bristle at the “activist” label. “Journalism should be an active thing,” he said. “I don’t believe there’s such a thing as objective journalism. It’s produced by human beings, and we’re subjective. You have to have the facts right, but other than that… tell me a story.”

“Where to Invade Next” marks the debut of a kinder, gentler liberal crusader. In conversation, Moore even conveys respect for his ideological opponents. “One of the great things about conservatives is that they’re not a bunch of wusses,” he says. “They’re willing to take you on. I kind of admire them for that.”

Despite America’s seemingly intractable partisan rancor, Moore calls himself a “crazy optimist” at the end of the film. “We have all these examples where things do get better,” he said. “When people get off the couch and do something, things do get better. There are state ballot proposals next year regarding marijuana, there are parents’ groups trying to stop standardized testing, there’s a big push right now for paid maternity leave. The optimism is well grounded.”

calendar@latimes.com

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