freeds Reviews

BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Exciting mash-up of dangerous lies and important truth about racism

[4/10 · 24 September 2018]

"Black KKKlansman" is based on the memoir of a black former cop. The job of police (black and white alike) is to keep workers and the oppressed in line on behalf of the owning class, with blacks at the bottom as a special target of state brutality from slavery on. While spying on the Klan in the '70s with the help of a white colleague, the black cop also infiltrated the multiracial, worker-oriented Progressive Labor group. Police historically disrupt progressive organizations, while generally protecting those of racists and fascists -- the rulers' reserve army. Over and over they cover for individual cop acts of racist brutality. How does Spike Lee handle these facts? He ignores his hero's work against PL and invents an episode in which the police department opposes a racist in its ranks.

The movie does show racism (still) rampaging, stoked by the rulers' present front man. Against this unavoidable truth, the filmmaker counterposes messages and protests rejecting hate. Their wishful moralizing is about as useful as a silk shirt against a bullet. Our defense depends not on cops, or mockery of the racists, or "love," but on the power of the multiracial working class.

A new rating is in order: This exciting entertainment for anti-racists should be viewed through class-reality lenses. Rita Freed

Blindspotting (2018)

Powerful but with its own blind spot

[6/10 · 18 August 2018]

The story at the core of "Blindspotting" is powerful and perceptive on the trauma of racism. Exchanges of spoken word poetry between the two leads and kaleidoscopic visuals represent their inclusive, creative, violent native Oakland. Fantasy visions also partly cloak the implausible elements of the story, and illuminate the characters' psycho-social pain. But personal expression won't overcome race and class oppression, or prevent the corporate-tech-hipster takeover of Oakland. The film's real blindspot is the hole where a vision of creative collective action might have been. R. Freed

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Powerful film, blinkered vision (shared by reviewers)

[6/10 · 24 March 2018]

Reviews of this powerful, strongly-acted but partly blind film divide along predictable political lines. Many point out that the escalating violence of the bitter bereaved mother and the racist junior cop are writer-director-producer McDonagh's preferred style and are as unlikely as the relative saintliness of the "billboarded" police chief and other characters. These commenters deny U.S. society's racism, police brutality, homophobia, sexism and hostility to outsiders that the film reflects.

On the other hand, liberal reviewers applaud both its accurate echo of our daily headlines and its fairytale image of "common humanity" ending hate (despite all history to the contrary). The extreme social pathology of the U.S. has a material source: a rapacious, violent, world-striding system cloaked in hypocrisy. Only some awareness of this reality could ground a more believable narrative of characters driven to extremes.

R. Freed

The Young Karl Marx (2017)

Good but necessarily incomplete

[6/10 · 7 March 2018]

Peck's film follows appealingly prickly young Marx and Engels from their early insistence on the hard truths of class-conflict against the utopian socialists of their day, to the founding of the first workers' international with a program of anti-capitalist struggle, the Communist Manifesto. Only a profit-system triumphalist would resist cheering them on along with the galvanized, wretched workers of 1848. The contrasting constraints on their activist mates, the high-born Jenny Marx and worker Mary Burns, raise still-pressing issues, and the situation of Engels, the revolutionary intellectual who must finance the cause by working for the enemy, may resonate with professionals today.

But the movie, concluding with a montage of wars and protests churned up by the profit system in the present, feels frustrating and incomplete - inevitably so. It doesn't show the collective hero of Marx and Engels' vision, the world working class. This class, that produces all, is now ever more interlinked and technically advanced. But its political development hasn't caught up with material conditions that never existed in previous challenges to capitalism. The decisive fight against the old system for humanity's future has yet to be waged, its film still to be made. R. Freed

Where to Invade Next (2015)

Moore and the limitations of liberalism

[7/10 · 29 March 2016]

"Where To Invade Next" contrasts U.S. social backwardness with more humane policies in some other capitalist countries: good, civilized school lunches, ample vacations and downtime for workers, free college tuition, rehabilitation and no death penalty for prisoners, free abortions (in a Muslim country!), prosecution of corporate criminals and numerically appropriate representation of women in business and government.

The film is important, well made and perceptive in many ways. Moore shows how various progressive ideas originated in the U.S. but have been implemented elsewhere due to workers', womens' and students' collective struggle, long absent here. He laments the unconfronted living legacy of slavery and lynch rule, vividly depicting the racist brutality of police and the profitable U.S. prison slave-labor system. He notes also that 59% of the U.S. budget goes to the military. He does so in passing, however. It's a telling indication of his limited perspective.

The filmmaker doesn't comment on how U.S. military triumphalism infects public thought. On the other hand he's inspired by German "national" accountability which holds the masses, rather than the rulers, guilty for Nazi racial and war crimes. U.S. capitalism's military and financial reach set in motion global waves of speculative frenzy and austerity. Pushback and more humane policies ensued in some places but massive unemployment and marginal labor remain widespread. The benefits Moore profiles are possible because they're unequally distributed. At the same time the immigrant and marginal underclass provides a lower wage ceiling and the political tinder by which the ruling class justifies ever increasing state repression. Moore's focus on good versus bad policy "choices" takes no notice of any of this.

It's an inherently moralistic and superficial view, not grounded in any consideration of the capitalist system, ideology and class relations in which such "choices" are made. His proposals may persuade a liberal audience to press for more than the ever lesser evil they've been swallowing. But events seem to be overtaking Moore's too-gentle persuasion. Some other director will yet have to address the burning questions of class power.

Rita Freed

Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People (2014)

Black American "family photo album" marred by narrow focus

[5/10 · 12 September 2014]

"Through a Lens Darkly" presents fascinating images of Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass in abolitionist propaganda portraits, and of black Union soldiers and black Reconstruction legislators, to support the idea that photography allowed black people to represent themselves and counter racist stereotypes. The film's organizing concept is inherently an elitist and limiting one, however, with an increasingly narrow focus on the few who could afford to have the camera record their accomplishments and their prosperity.

The labor of slaves, sharecroppers and then millions of industrial workers made possible the country's development and the black elite's rise. Yet black labor as a huge social force is airbrushed from this director's "emergence of a people." There's no trace of the growing class conflict between owners and workers, black and white, that fueled racist pogromism. There's little representation of overwhelming black poverty, little of black struggle. In the film, lynching is "answered" by black moral outrage but there's hardly any record of anti-lynch journalist Ida Wells. The most basic social realities are ignored and a vaguely nationalist sensibility is imposed on a necessarily incoherent parade of icons, with no hint of what these icons stood for politically.

There are some pictures of nationalist Marcus Garvey, few of accommodationist M.L. King. Photogenic and photography-promoting B.T. Washington gets a bit more time than W.E.B. DuBois, with nothing to indicate that the former promoted black menial training and subservience to white rule while the latter challenged him from the left and fought for black civil rights. Similarly, pictures of Black Panthers and Malcolm X share a segment with the March on the Washington, though they considered it a farce.

Elitism and nationalism are a blindfold. Is it progress that a black filmmaker can be just as self-absorbed and socially clueless as any white director? Maybe. But one might have hoped that a black creative intellectual, as an outsider, would bring a wide-angle lens to bear on our hardly post-racial society.

Rita Freed

Philomena (2013)

The three stories of "Philomena"

[9/10 · 3 January 2014]

"Philomena" is a searing true story of venal cruelty by the Irish Catholic Church, which for decades punished girls "guilty" of unmarried sex by indentured service in laundries and by handing over their children to foreign "donors." The title character, feisty and blunt but also deeply sentimental and religious, believed for fifty years that it was a sin to even speak of her stolen child. The journalist who helps her search for the boy is disillusioned, a hater of euphemism and an atheist. The engaging contrast of sensibilities is superbly portrayed by Dench as Philomena Lee and Coogan as the journalist Martin Sixsmith. Their investigation reveals a punitive self-serving cover-up by the Church. The film offers another, unspoken story to those who care to find it: religion as Stockholm syndrome, whose victims are psychologically tortured with visions of hellfire and consoled with grace for forgiving abusers.

Rita Freed

12 Years a Slave (2013)

The basic falsehood within "12 Years a Slave"

[4/10 · 1 December 2013]

"12 Years a Slave" is a gripping, mostly well-made, but basically false film. To say it finally shows the brutal truth about U. S. chattel slavery just proves how blind opinion-shapers are about U.S. racism, past and present.

Was the main outrage of slavery really that it could engulf a cultured, free black individual? That's what the hero suggests when, speaking to a sympathetic white, he protests the injustice of HIS captivity. As an afterthought, he also observes that slavery in general is unjust. Several of the other slaves with whom he interacts are inexplicably well-spoken and the camera lingers repeatedly on their faces to remind us of their stoic nobility.

The filmmaker shows keen understanding of psychological nuance in the relationships between masters, other whites, and slaves. He evidently meant to evoke viewer empathy with victims who seem to be a lot like "us." This film is meant to make liberals feel good about "our" distance from that world. It predictably has outraged some reactionaries who don't like exposing the warts of U.S. "democracy."

The main truth of U.S. slavery is not the story of extraordinary individuals either as victims or avengers but of ordinary people brutalized and traumatized, accommodating and finally resisting the private appropriation of their persons and their labor. The film that tells this truth won't be made until all those who labor, black and white, start speaking for themselves.

Rita Freed

Hannah Arendt (2012)

Missing history from "Hannah Arendt"

[6/10 · 16 July 2013]

The film "Hannah Arendt" depicts an intriguing and contradictory intellectual but avoids examining the political core of the famous controversy it recounts. Arendt stirred a furor with her 1963 writings on the Israeli government's trial in Jerusalem of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann. She characterized Eichmann, who had organized the transport of European Jews to the death camps, as a banal bureaucrat rather than a singular monster. She wrote that European Jewish leaders, too, were responsible, by administering submission to the Nazis when even futile resistance and chaos might have allowed more Jews to survive. The public attacks on Arendt are shown. She was pilloried, particularly by Jewish intellectuals, as an unfeeling Nazi sympathizer and self-hating Jew. The New School's move to fire her is also enacted.

But the film, which shows Arendt as shocked to learn that she has hurt the feelings of many Jews, including long-time friends, does not reveal that she had broken with the Zionist leaders in 1942 when they called for a Jewish state rather than the bi-national Palestine she supported. The Zionists opposed measures to rescue Jews from the Nazis other than those that herded them to Palestine. They claimed, however, that their takeover of Palestine was all about saving Jews from a unique evil -- a claim unchallenged by most liberals as well as the Stalinist left. Arendt's analysis hit the Zionists' guilty conscience and undermined the rationale for their nationalist project. The film ignores these crucial political elements, and presents Arendt's strong defender and friend only as novelist "Mary" without disclosing that Mary McCarthy was an anti-Stalinist and anti-Zionist who called Zionism the "Jewish final solution."

Director Margarethe von Trotta's failure to explore this relevant history leaves her film interesting but superficial when it could have been brave and timely. Arendt's famous topic, thoughtless compliance with evildoers in power, needs our attention today more than ever. Fifty years after the "Banality of Evil" controversy, U.S. liberals and progressives are blindly uncritical of a leader who spies on millions and remotely executes foreigners and citizens in the name of national security. A militarily mighty Zionist state is still free to massacre innocents, shielded by this unquestioned U.S. power and the old sacred cow that Israel is the only safe haven for Jews. Arendt might have had some juicy comments about the "banality of filmmaking."

Rita Freed

¿Quién soy yo? (2007)

Film about "Dirty War" leaves out politics!

[3/10 · 19 April 2012]

Estela Bravo's "Quién Soy Yo?" ("Who am I?" US/Argentina/UK, 2007) had its U.S. premiere at the 9th annual Havana Film Festival in New York on April 12, 2008. This documentary traces the struggle of the families of those who disappeared during the infamous Argentine "Dirty War" of 1976-1983 to discover the fate of their loved ones and to recover the kidnapped children of those who perished. The film's organizational core is the women's group known as the "Mothers (later the Grandmothers) of the Plaza de Mayo," who became world famous for their weekly demonstrations in the center of Buenas Aires. The group puts the total of the disappeared at 30,000 and estimates that at least 500 children were taken from their murdered mothers and given or sold for adoption by military officers and by families loyal to the military dictatorship. As the result of their relentless, decades-long campaigns -- which included the widespread posting of photos of mothers and babies, emotional presentations to school classes and modern DNA analysis -- the Grandmothers were able to restore their proper identities to nearly 90 young adults, most of whom have reestablished connections with their biological relatives. Interviews with these young people, with those who knew their lost parents and visits to the sites of the concentration camps constitute the bulk of the film.

Bravo is a skilled interviewer and elicits many touching comments from her subjects, including the grandmother-leaders of the movement. Other compelling footage includes the end of the trial and sentencing of the junta leaders (Videla and most of the other Generals got life imprisonment; Galtieri -- who launched the Falklands War -- inexplicably got only 15 years) and the final statements and sentencing in trials of two particularly notorious torturer- murderers: a police official and a prison guard. A surprisingly poignant moment in the film came during a speech delivered to a huge crowd by recent President Néstor Kirchner: he apologized for ignoring the issue of the disappeared during the previous 20 years of his political life.

It is hard to imagine that anyone but the most hardened reactionary could come away from this film without being touched. Nevertheless, as the film progressed, this reviewer experienced a rising sense of outrage at the filmmaker. Whatever Bravo's interior politics, her external posture is that of liberal political naiveté. Why (you may ask) were 30,000 people subjected to illegal arrest and imprisonment and -- many -- to the most brutal of tortures and deaths? As the bereaved are heard to say throughout: "for their unconventional ideas," "because they struggled for a better world" etc. etc. The words "socialism," "communism," "revolution" and the like are steadfastly avoided, as if using them would somehow taint or demean the victims, some of whom were not highly political. The filmmaker certainly could have found people qualified to speak about the ideologies and affiliations of the most political of the victims but she evidently believed this aspect of the "Dirty War" was best not talked about. Thus, the ideals held by many of these martyrs -- that for which they lived and died -- were not a subject fit for presentation in a film about their martyrdom!

No socially-aware viewer can fail to notice that many of the victims had Jewish-sounding names. Several survivors describe jailers who were openly pro-Nazi. Anti-Jewish bigotry is nothing new in Argentina. For example, the massive government suppression of organized labor in Buenas Aires in 1919 was the occasion of an officially-sanctioned pogrom (the "Semana Tragica" -- Tragic Week). Toward the end of the film, several speakers, including the Grandmothers' leader, use the word "genocide" to describe the mass slaughter. What does this mean? Was the "Dirty War" intended to annihilate a specific ethnic group? No doubt many fascistic elements in the Argentine military and police were keen to kill Jews but the main purpose of the "Dirty War" was POLITICAL: the extermination of the LEFT. The erroneous use of the term "genocide" in the film only serves to obscure this fact.

In keeping with her pretended agnosticism of the political nature of the "Dirty War," Estela Bravo also does not bother to inform her audience of either of the following:

1. The Argentine "Dirty War" was but one component of "Operation Condor," the 1970s CIA- sponsored program of eradicating leftists carried out by SIX right-wing regimes in the "Southern Cone."

2. The film notes repeatedly that democratic rule was restored in Argentina in 1983. What caused that restoration? Although there was significant public opposition all during the rule of the Generals, the public turned against them massively and decisively only after their insane 1982 military adventure in the Falklands/Malvinas ended in ignominious defeat at the hands of British Imperialism.

Bravo's "Who Am I?" succeeds well enough within the self-imposed confines of an apolitical human-interest story combining tragedy and triumph. Those desiring political and historical enlightenment, however, will have to look elsewhere.

Barry Freed

Caracremada (2010)

"The Last anti-Franco Guerrilla"

[2/10 · 26 December 2010]

Nicknamed "Caracremada" ("burnt face" in his native Catalan) because of facial burn scars acquired in his youth, Ramon Vila Capdevila (1908-1963) was a life-long anarchist militant. First imprisoned in his twenties after participating in a workers' uprising, he was an active fighter against Francoism during the 1936-1939 Civil War, eventually becoming a commandant in the Republic's Carabinero Corps. Exiled in France following Franco's victory, Vila participated in the resistance to the Nazi occupation, then returned to Spain at the end of WWII as an anti-Franco guerrilla. As an explosives expert, Vila's specialty was blowing up economic targets: electric power stations, high-tension transmission towers, railway bridges etc.

When the anarchist headquarters-in-exile in France ordered a halt to its Spanish guerrilla operations in the early 1950s, Vila disregarded those orders and continued his struggle. It would have been interesting to know exactly what sort of military operations this determined man engaged in for the last years of his life, before he was killed at age 55 in an ambush by the Guardia Civil. It would have been interesting to know how he survived during those years, how he obtained food, clothing, shelter and weapons, what sort of help he received from the anarchist underground and from sympathetic Catalan peasants. But, rather than imparting this sort of information to his audience, filmmaker Lluís Galter chooses to remain mute. For while "Caracremada" presents visually stunning footage of the Catalan Pirineus (Pyrenees) and is rich with the natural sounds of the mountains and forests, this film has no more than a few lines of dialogue! Thus, the viewer is left to guess at the meaning of the various human interactions and other activities which are depicted wordlessly.

If it was a matter of principle for Galter to refrain from interpolating into this film dialogue that is not present in the historical record, then he overdid that "principle" by far. Equally annoying was the ever-present hacksaw. Are we really to believe that Ramon spent much of his time taking down electrical towers by hack-sawing through a support leg? Information I gleaned from a not-very-extensive internet search indicated that Ramon used explosives in most of those electrical tower attacks and that, contrary to the film's "lone wolf" portrayal, he preferred to work with a partner. It does not seem, therefore, that passion for historical accuracy accounts for Galter's informational abstentionism. Instead, Galter seems more interested in portraying Ramon as a romantic symbol — the indefatigable, heroic, lone, last guerrilla — than as an authentic historic figure. Even less is Galter interested in offering any objective evaluation of the effectiveness of anarchist ideology in general or of isolated guerrilla attacks in particular. That is Catalunya's loss — and ours as well.

Barry Freed

Dawson Isla 10 (2008)

Doomed to repeat their political mistakes?

[3/10 · 3 May 2010]

This 2009 Chilean film, based on the diary of one of the inmates, depicts a group of prominent Chilean political prisoners in the 1970s. After the government of elected "Socialist" President Salvador Allende was ousted in 1973, in a CIA-engineered coup d'état led by army general-turned-dictator, Augusto Pinochet, ten surviving members of Allende's cabinet were consigned to a navy-run prison camp on the cold and forbidding Dawson Island, in the Strait of Magellan, a region infamous for some of the world's worst weather.

On the surface, as a prisoner-of-war film, "Dawson Island 10" has the expected dramatic tension. Despised as "Communists" and "traitors" by most of their captors, the inmates are forced to perform hard labor under punishing conditions and are routinely insulted and degraded. The living conditions portrayed in the film, however, including comfortable-looking beds and bedding, are at odds with the descriptions of squalor that appeared in later authoritative government and international reports. The prison commandant, an old-school naval officer, is shown giving lip service to honoring the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war and believing that he is "rehabilitating" his captives, turning them into "better people" through hard labor. The film indicates that, with time, he develops a degree of respect for their intelligence and abilities. (They repair his malfunctioning radio.) It also shows him resisting subordinate army officers who agitate repeatedly for solving the growing problem of prison overcrowding by executing some or all of the prisoners. Instead, he orders the building of more barracks. The film depicts the transfer back to the mainland (amidst dire forebodings) of ailing former Defense Minister Jose Toha. It does not, however, show his actual fate at his destination, the Air Force War Academy in Santiago: endless tortures followed by hanging. Even if the film's portrayal of the Dawson Island prison commandant's humanity was accurate, it would be a great mistake to conclude that this behavior was typical of the Chilean Navy. In fact, its Admiral Merino was one of the principal coup leaders and the Naval War Academy in Valparaiso was one of the regime's most notorious torture/murder centers.

As a historical political document, however, "Dawson Island 10" fails utterly. Instead of analyzing the suicidal policies of Allende & Co. in their "peaceful, parliamentary road to socialism," it surrounds the fallen "Comrade President" with a halo of near-religious awe and perpetuates those fatal myths. One of the former cabinet members speaks glowingly about their desire to "take power without firing a shot." No one speaks out against this idiocy. Several of them, bemoaning their fate, cry out: "how did this happen?", "what did we do wrong"? It was all I could do to restrain myself from yelling at the top of my voice "you let the fascist bastards take power, that's what you did wrong!" It was not only these prisoners who appear to have learned NOTHING from the overthrow of the Allende regime. The filmmakers seem to have learned nothing as well. They raised not the slightest challenge to the deeply Stalinist and reformist notion that capitalism can be overthrown from WITHIN the system — one of the deadliest political illusions in today's world. As Karl Marx wrote after the French capitalists crushed the glorious Paris Commune of 1871: "the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes." On the contrary, it is necessary for the workers to DESTROY the capitalists' state machinery and replace it with a state that advances the interests of THEIR class. If only that lesson would be learned, the Chilean martyrs will not have suffered and died in vain.

Barry Freed

A Wednesday (2008)

"Mother" India as a swaggering, chauvinist bully

[2/10 · 2 July 2009]

Judging by the standing ovation, from an overwhelmingly Indian audience, that followed the showing of Neeraj Pandey's "A Wednesday" at New York's Museum of Modern Art in June 2009, this film struck deeply resonant chords in that audience, as it has with the great majority of the 83 IMDb reviewers thus far (most of whom are Indians, in-country or ex-pats). Politically-conscious foreign viewers seeking insight into the present state of mind of the Indian masses will find the results sobering. The "Mother" India portrayed here is a swaggering, xenophobic bully. "A Wednesday" serves as a point of pride for Hindu chauvinists thirsting for "great power" recognition: those for whom it is not enough to have the world's third-largest (and nuclear-armed) military but who also want popular culture to reflect the actual correlation of forces. The fact that "we" can now make a film with as much razzle-dazzle, high-tech, beat-em-up national superiority as those made by the world's only superpower shows that "we" have arrived. That this film "can be compared to a Hollywood movie" (Abhishek Kumar) is the highest praise possible.

Despite the IMDb's warnings against spoilers, the plot details of this "thriller" have been covered amply in the already-submitted reviews, including a pretty clear description of the film's big, penultimate, plot twist, through which its main message is delivered. That message would be familiar to and appreciated by many in the U.S.: those for whom "the world changed" on September 11, 2001 (when they lost their illusion of invulnerability); those who wanted to round up every Arab, then every Muslim, then every swarthy "foreigner"; those who lynched a turban-wearing Sikh or a dark-skinned Hispanic; those who thirsted for revenge, against any "enemy," at any cost; those who were suckered into supporting the invasion and occupation of Iraq and those who still are being suckered into supporting the "remaking" of Afghanistan.

The political subtext of "A Wednesday" was expressed approvingly by several of its IMDb enthusiasts: "mocks the failure of the state machinery to give a free hand to the police force" (chet rathod); "right message to everyone . . . don't make us rebel back, it will cost you" (Prashanth Patil); "it's time that we woke up & be(came) intolerant of those who take the liberty to end hundreds of innocent lives for the sake of their own unhealthy psyche" (The Moon! from India); "you have to kill the cockroach of your house and no body will do this for you" (abhi vega00). An extremely brutal Mumbai cop (played convincingly by Jimmy Shergill) who delivers a severe and prolonged public beating to a fellow cop, in full view of dozens of onlookers, is described as "hot blooded" by several of the film's admirers and as "the policeman who means business" (aniket-dave). But the habitual use of brutality is not restricted to a rogue cop. When he wants to extract some information from a jailed "terrorist," the Mumbai Police Commissioner himself storms into the man's cell and proceeds to beat him unmercifully, repeatedly yelling "have I asked you anything?" over the victim's vain attempts to provide what is wanted. The message is clear: "You are at my mercy and I can do anything I want with you. After I have beaten you sufficiently, you will tell me everything." Some of the film's enthusiasts seem to have gone completely off the rails: "most striking feature of the movie is its POSITIVITY" (Jignesh Vaidya). Arun Iyer from Mumbai even called this film "wholesome"! But there were cautions as well: "Everything was fine with . . . movie except the idea of standing up against something using extreme means" (Sree Harsha Sake).

It restores one's faith in human decency and intelligence that at least some of the IMDb reviewers recognized this film's deep ugliness, pervasive racism and worship of brutality. "The film is . . . stridently right-wing in its approach to terror" (long-ford from India). It "completely supports" and "glorifies . . . the 'fight violence with violence' method" (The Discolored Chameleon). "This film is constructed in a way to legitimate the use of force and violence by governmental agencies in case of emergency, and we, the terrified viewers, are invited to identify ourselves with the good guys and approve this point of view" (dylndg from Madagascar).

As some of its detractors point out, "A Wednesday" has no doubts about the identity of the enemy: Pakistan, its ISI (spy agency), Al Qaeda and, by implication, Muslims in general, are the sources of "violence." To his shame, the justly celebrated Indian actor, Naseeruddin Shah, allowed himself to be used here as a Muslim cover for the film's undisguised Islamophobia. The amused nod of familiarity from the Mumbai Police Commissioner (ably played by Anupam Kher) upon hearing the Muslim name of a suspected "terrorist" speaks volumes about the mind-set of the Hindu state.

For a large section of humanity, whose attitudes are shaped by media controlled by their exploiters, "terrorism" is an activity exclusive to deranged individuals, predatory organizations and "rogue" states. When "good countries" (e.g. the U.S., Britain, Israel etc.) slaughter innocents, these acts are called "accidents" or "unintended collateral damage." Blessings on the heads of two reviewers from India (bruce-woodstock and Sreyas S S) for reminding us that the largest losses of life in India have been inflicted by official state violence and by communal riots. (The 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in the State of Gujarat, during which thousands were killed and injured and tens of thousands made homeless at the hands of Hindu mobs, was facilitated by official indifference to — if not outright collusion in — the violence.) The outraged patriot does not perceive such violence as "terrorism." Nor does "A Wednesday." By advancing the need for a "strong state," police brutality, torture and, if all else fails, vigilante justice, this film gives aid and comfort to the Dick Cheneys of the world.

Barry Freed

The End of Poverty? (2008)

An "examination" of world poverty that leads nowhere

[2/10 · 15 December 2008]

Phillipe Diaz's "The End of Poverty?" pretends to take up the cause of the world's oppressed. According to the short plot summary (written by producer Beth Portello) which appears on the main IMDb page for this film, it was "Inspired by the works of 19th century economist Henry George, who examined the causes of industrial depressions." The fact that the film methodically ignores the contributions of the far more influential and widely celebrated 19th century investigator of industrial depressions and poverty, Karl Marx, is but one indication of this film's intellectually shoddy and ultimately dishonest character.

"The End of Poverty?" is structured as a series of three intermixed components, which goes on for nearly all of a seemingly endless 106 minutes: (1) interviews with impoverished people in the "Third World," which, here, is synonymous with the "South"; (2) interviews with historians, economists and political thinkers (mostly from the "First World") who sketch out some of the history of European colonialism and its effects on the colonized peoples and (3) full-screen, white-on-black statistical statements like "X percent of the world's people consume Y percent of the world's energy" etc. Along the way, some of the commentators point out that the rise of capitalism was based on — and a large share of its profits continues to be based on — the ruthless exploitation of the colonial world. Although the talking heads often use the circumspect word "system," references to "capitalism" appear more frequently as the film progresses. Thus, the viewer might reasonably expect the film to culminate with a call for the end (overthrow?) of the system which causes all this misery: capitalism. Don't hold your breath!

The film's portrait of the world's wretched is peculiarly skewed. Most of the interviews with poor people and footage of pitiful living conditions are from South America, notably Bolivia. The time allotted to Africa is a distant second and focuses on Kenya, with a much smaller Tanzanian component. There is precious little footage from — or mention of — Asia. Most of the interviewed poor are or were connected to the land in some way. Industrial workers are essentially ignored. Causes of poverty such as war and ethnic victimization are similarly overlooked. "Does poverty exist even within the over-consuming 'North' as well?" one might ask. As far as "The End of Poverty?" is concerned, the latter is invisible. Other viewers might be forgiven for wondering about the effects on poverty of the overthrow of capitalism in the Soviet Union, China and Cuba (the "Second World"?). Again, silence reigns. Thus, as a study of the world's misery, the film is impressively inadequate.

As the film enters its final stage, there is a half-hearted invocation of the long-forgotten U.S. economic philosopher, Henry George. In his 1879 "Progress and Poverty," George proposed that poverty could be eliminated(!) by the abolition of ground rent and of all taxes save one: a tax on land. Not only was this panacea unoriginal (it had been advocated for more than 50 years by the followers of classical British economist David Ricardo), it was wacky. Karl Marx thought that George's theory was "the more unpardonable in him because he ought to have put the question to himself in just the opposite way: How did it happen that in the United States, where . . . in comparison with civilised Europe, the land was accessible to the great mass of the people, . . . capitalist economy and the corresponding enslavement of the working class have developed more rapidly and shamelessly than in any other country!" For Marx, adherents of George's view ". . . try to bamboozle . . . the world into believing that if ground rent were transformed into a state tax, all the evils of capitalist production would disappear of themselves. The whole thing is therefore simply an attempt . . . to save capitalist domination and indeed to establish it afresh on an even wider basis than its present one." (See Marx's letter to F. A. Sorge, June 20, 1881.) The film does not make so bold as to try to resurrect George's single-tax panacea. Instead, it offers an updated version: the "Commons" paradigm. Supporters of this liberal nostrum believe that the solution for the world's poor is to remove all of the land from private ownership and to hold it in common. Unsurprisingly, they do not explain how to achieve this little miracle.

In the film's last few minutes, some of the commentators raise the specter of the supposed limitations (as judged by what standard — present-day capitalist production?) of the world's resources and the excessive and unequal consumption of those resources by the "North." The real aim of Diaz & Co. here is to guilt-trip gullible people in the industrialized countries into adopting moralistic "use less energy" schemes, as if conscience-stricken lowering of consumption in the "First World" will magically increase consumption in the "Third." The accelerating global descent into depression, triggered by the unprecedentedly massive "mortgage securities" fraud perpetrated by the U.S.'s financial sector, will, no doubt, achieve Diaz's aim of lowering consumption in the "North." Does he actually believe this will benefit the world's poor?

For Diaz & Co., the "North" is an undifferentiated entity. Its working class, whose exploitation remains necessary for the survival of the capitalist system and which regularly loses some of its ranks into the maelstrom of poverty, does not figure in their calculations. And this is the most pernicious omission of their retreaded Malthusian ideology. For it is ONLY the working class of the developed countries — once it becomes conscious of its historic class interests — which has the SOCIAL POWER to reorganize production on a rationally-planned, world-wide, for-need basis, in order to lift itself AND the colonial masses out of the chain of misery. Because "The End of Poverty?" conceals this vital knowledge from anyone who is interested in ending poverty, it is, finally, an obstacle to achieving that goal.

Barry Freed

24 City (2008)

Cowardly depiction of a factory closure in China

[3/10 · 26 October 2008]

Chris Knipp's review of "24 City" (this film's English title) contains many useful details, which I need not recapitulate. It also contains some misstatements, which I would like to correct, and omits the sort of political insights which this interested observer of Chinese politics since the late 1950s would like to supply.

Among the misstatements: to say that the "dim-witted" (i.e. semi-senile) retired worker who receives a long-delayed visit from his former apprentice was a "master of the factory" gives an inaccurate impression. The man was the head of a production team, not of the entire factory. While the film certainly is quite slow-moving, it is an exaggeration to say that "one person or a group look(ed) silently into the camera for a minute or so." I also don't agree that the film tells a "tale of repression," not in the true political sense of the word, anyway. Had the workers waged a mass struggle to convert their factory to some other use or, at least, to move their jobs to some other site, then we might have seen some actual repression (attacks by cops, arrests etc.) — if the director had the guts to show it to us, that is. Finally, where did Chris get "Later (Factory) 420 was retooled to produce peacetime products such as washing machines."? Neither my wife nor I noticed any such comment in the film.

The scene mentioned above between former master and apprentice was extremely touching. But were these men the actual workers or were they actors? As soon as I became aware that actors were delivering some of the "interviews," my opinion of this film plummeted. Chris accepted this as necessary: "Actors are used for some of the people because Jia interviewed 130 people and had to create composites." "Had to"? Were the originals not photogenic enough? Did they not tell their stories engagingly enough? Or was the director so inept that he didn't get some of the interviews on film? Later, though, Chris said that this method "undercut the sense of realism." And how! The New York Film Festival's (NYFF) introduction was similarly divided about whether the film was more documentary or more fictional. "24 City's" most blatantly phony "testimony" was that of "Little Flower," a mature female "factory worker," played by the widely-known, glamorous actress Joan Chen. When "Little Flower" relates her unlucky-in-love history, she mentions that her coworkers said she looked just like the actress Joan Chen! Cute, no? The fact that director JiaZhangKe (the format in which his name appears in the film's credits) wasted time and effort on this completely dispensable item reflects the weakness underlying his whole approach to the project.

Chris said that the director's previous work "seems to have given way (here) to adverts for capitalism." It seemed to me that the director evinced a significant ideological dilemma: either he doesn't know exactly where he stands or, if he does, he doesn't have the guts to tell us. The film contains several HINTS of nostalgia for the early years of the People's Republic, including the description by a long-time plant security official of Factory 420's important role in producing jet engines for Chinese and North Korean military aircraft during the "struggle against U.S. Imperialism" (i.e. what the U.S. calls the "Korean War"). Imagine — there still are people in China who are capable of using such terminology! Then there is the brief scene of a group of middle-aged women (workers from Factory 420?) singing "The Internationale" (which, contrary to the NYFF's introduction, is NOT a "pop song"). Who-when-where-why? Sorry, the director doesn't bother to provide such details.

What the director DOES NOT tell us is at the heart of what is wrong with this film. During the Q&A session after the film's NYFF premier, JiaZhangKe mentioned that the destruction of Factory 420 resulted in the loss of their jobs by about 30,000 workers. Why the hell didn't he put this little detail into the film? Were these workers offered other jobs or retraining for such? Did they receive severance pay and if so, how much? Did they receive unemployment compensation and, if so, how much and for how long? Did they lose their factory-associated housing, medical care and schooling for their children? Such information would have been useful to those interested in the sociology and political economy of contemporary China but providing it was not on JiaZhangKe's agenda.

What was JiaZhangKe's purpose in showing us the visit by the stylish young professional shopper to her mother's factory, where she sees for the first time the miserable, oppressive nature of her mother's job and weeps? Was he simply promoting sympathy for the older generation or did he think that the "transition to a market economy" will eliminate the need for such degrading labor? (A close look at the vast number of numbingly repetitive jobs in the highly capitalized modern factories of the "world's workshop" would dispel any such illusion.)

Why does "24 City" only contain interviews with workers laid off from Factory 420 in the 1990s and earlier? Why no interviews with ANY of the thousands being laid off as Factory 420 is torn down to make room for a five-star hotel? Might such workers have been too angry? Might they have made intemperate comments about China's rulers? The cowardliness involved in this deficiency is breathtaking! JiaZhangKe poses as sympathetic to those who suffer from capitalist development but doesn't want to go too far in that direction because he is not completely opposed to this process. Nor does he want to cut off his access to the lucrative capitalist world film market. His invocation of the mystical, reactionary poetry of W. B. Yeats is but one signal of his orientation to that market and of his willingness to "go along."

Barry Freed

Cochochi (2007)

A depressing portrait of indigenous rural backwardness

[3/10 · 6 September 2008]

The romanticization of indigenous people to the point of being unable to grasp the full implications of their backwardness is an unfortunately familiar phenomenon in present-day "industrialized" society. In the minds of many middle class liberals, a romanticized and correspondingly "non-judgmental" attitude toward such cultures is the only permissible one. The problem with this attitude, of course, is that it contributes little to changing the conditions of the oppressed. The surprising thing here is that this attitude is expressed by reviewers rather than by the filmmakers!

If you don't already know that oppressed indigenous people can be sullen, uncommunicative and mean-spirited, then, perhaps, there is some point to seeing this film. I write "perhaps" because the three IMDb reviews that have appeared thus far indicate that seeing this film was not sufficient for deepening one's understanding. "I didn't feel I gained any huge understanding of what made the culture distinct from other rural Mexican ones (or even rural ones in general)" wrote one of the reviewers.

Two of the three reviewers complained of the "poor performances" turned in by the "amateurish" cast members. According to them, the unscripted actors spoke "in delayed fits and starts" and "took a lot of time deciding what to say, giving their on-screen relationships a very disconnected feel." The clear implication is that filmmakers Cárdenas and Guzmán were simply too inexperienced to produce the rapidly flowing dialogue that these reviewers expected. Was it so difficult to imagine that the subjects of "Cochochi" actually behave this way? Reviewer "death-hilarious" hoped for a "charming example of back to basics story telling." Perhaps he would have preferred clever and amusing natives along the lines of the South African comedy "The Gods Must Be Crazy."

My impression is that Cárdenas and Guzmán knew this culture very well, intended to portray it as realistically as possible — warts and all — and succeeded brilliantly. But, did they have a deeper purpose beyond anthropological reportage? Reviewer "death-hilarious" claimed to know (and appreciated) what the directors "tried to do with this film for the Tarahumara." What was that, exactly? The program that often underlies cinematic efforts of this type is that of informing the audience of the subjects' oppression in order to stir them to call for reforms to relieve that oppression. Did it serve this purpose to show several of the characters as either delinquent (including an incredibly irresponsible grandfather) or nasty and brutish? Did this not risk supplying ammunition to the reactionary viewer who is convinced that the impoverished condition of native people is "their own fault"?

In my opinion, the film does not supply sufficient information to unambiguously determine the filmmakers' purpose. It does supply evidence, however, for a program quite different from the more usual one cited above. In his speech to the elementary school's graduating class, the school's principal, speaking in Spanish (a second language for his students), holds up as a goal for his graduates that they become teachers and someday return to the school to teach future generations. This, the patriotic trooping of the Mexican flag and the final scene certainly convey a notion of the "true" road to progress. Thus, "Cochochi" can be seen as an admonition to the backward native: give up your old-fashioned language and ways, learn Spanish and join the rest of the nation! The viewer may wish to ponder the question of whether or not propagating this schema justified the expenditure of $400,000. I hope I may be excused for thinking that this sum could have been spent in a manner more appropriate to advancing the condition of the people the film portrayed. Reviewer "cochochi" thought that some of the scenes seemed "gratuitous." (Which ones?) My saddest thought is that this adjective may properly describe the entire project.

Barry Freed

Hitokiri (1969)

A "Brilliant History Lesson"? NOT!

[4/10 · 9 July 2008]

Many of the lead characters in Hideo Gosha's 1969 film "Hitokiri" (manslayer; aka "Tenchu" — heaven's punishment) were actual historical figures (in "western" name-order format): Ryoma Sakamoto, Hampeita Takechi, Shimbei Tanaka, Izo Okada, (?) Anenokoji. The name "Hitokiri," a historical term, refers to a group of four super-swordsmen who carried out numerous assassinations of key figures in the ruling Tokugawa Shogunate in the mid-1800s under the orders of Takechi, the leader of the "Loyalist" (i.e. ultra-nationalist, pro-Emperor) faction of the Tosa clan. What was this struggle about? Sad to say, you won't find out in this film. "Brilliant History Lesson" indeed!

No, Gosha is much more interested in showing you the usual bloody slicing and dicing and (at absurd length) the inner torment of the not-very-bright killer Izo Okada than in revealing actual history. Sakamoto, for example, was someone of historical significance, considered to be the father of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The closest Gosha comes to providing a history lesson is the scene in which Sakamoto, whom Takechi considers a traitor to the Loyalist cause, comes to Takechi's compound to try to sway him ideologically. He begins by talking about the international political/military situation, with foreign warships in Japan's ports and a Japan that is too weak militarily to defend against them. Want to know more? Sorry. Gosha cuts off this potentially fascinating lecture in mid sentence(!). So much for informing his audience about a turning point in Japanese history.

The film left me in utter confusion about the aims of the two sides in this struggle. For the two and a half centuries that the Shogunate held central power in Japan, it was an institution dedicated to preventing social change, to preserving the feudal relations of society. It was fearful of outside contamination, both ideological and technological. In keeping with this spirit, it outlawed firearms, those instruments of "leveling" in Europe and the Americas, with which a peasant could have stood up to a samurai. Throughout this period, the Emperor was nothing more than a spiritual figurehead.

But, in the towns, which developed in neutral zones between the feudal fiefdoms, a new class of merchants, landlords and craftsmen was forming — the class widely known in Europe by its French name, the bourgeoisie. Inevitably, as this new class gained strength, it chafed against the many confines of feudal society. As in Europe, the king (Emperor) became the central figure in the bourgeoisie's struggle for power against the feudal aristocracy. But a political leadership does not always fully understand the interests of the class it serves. When the outside world arrived with a bang in 1853, in the form of U.S. Admiral Perry's "Black Ships," the ruling elite of Japan were thrown into a crisis. Their military was no match for these foreigners. Also, they had heard about the havoc the British and French imperialists were wreaking in China. What should Japan do to save itself from the fate of its weak neighbor? Surprisingly, some elements within the usually isolationist Shogunate were inclined to open trade with the foreigners in order to obtain some of their advanced technology. This is the point of view represented (just barely) in the film by Sakamoto. On the other hand, the Emperor-loyal ultra-nationalists, represented by Takechi, believed they could keep out the foreigners by force, if only they could prevent the other faction from "selling out the country." (Sound familiar?) Thus, the assassination of key Shogunate figures is in order — and away we go.

Takechi's motivations were, for me, the film's biggest puzzle. Gosha suggests that he is fighting mainly for his personal advancement rather than for the Loyalist cause. Can we take this to represent the tenor of the Loyalists as a whole? (Do you care?)

Several reviewers compared this film favorably with "Goyokin," which Gosha made in the same year. But, where "Goyokin" is a crackling, suspenseful, adventure yarn, with a hero worthy of sympathy, "Hitokiri" is plodding, nowhere near as compelling and lacks such a hero. Sakamoto could have been this film's hero but we are not allowed to know him — nor what he stands for — well enough for him to achieve that status.

In view of his wonderful scores for five previous Kurosawa films, Masaru Sato's score here was very disappointing, sounding like something rejected from a "Bonanza" episode.

Barry Freed

I Am a Cat (1975)

"Cat" disappoints

[6/10 · 3 July 2008]

The adulatory review excerpts that accompanied the publicity for the showing of "I Am A Cat" in the Film Forum's summer 2008 retrospective of films starring Tatsuya Nakadai led me to expect a real treat, full of mordant wit and humor, when I saw it yesterday, July 2, 2008. This expectation was reinforced by an interview with Nakadai broadcast on WNYC-FM on June 24, 2008. In (a somewhat evasive) answer to a question about his favorites among his films, the great actor indicated that "I Am A Cat" belonged to that group. Speaking through an interpreter, he also mentioned that the film had not been a success in Japan because Japanese people did not appreciate ironic humor (then? in general?). Perhaps I missed most of the purported ironic humor as well because I found precious little of it in this film. Yes, there were some amusing moments but not enough to hold my interest. Reviewer "Dog Breath" tells us that the film was "never dull." Really? I found much of it boring (and, believe me, I don't require the incessant hacking off of limbs to keep my attention). The same reviewer also mentions "the film's tragic ending." Huh? The event near the end to which he refers was (humorously) sad but certainly not tragic in any meaningful sense of the word. "Sword of Doom" says that "the movie is good but only after you figure it out." I wonder how many hours (days?) were required to reach this conclusion.

Nakadai's character, Kushami, poses a dilemma for one who is not familiar with the Japanese literature. Kushami clearly embodies some of the attributes of Natsume Soseki, the Meiji Restoration-era novelist who also was a haiku poet, a writer of Chinese-style fairy tales and an expert on British literature. His 1905 novel "I Am A Cat" was a satirical look at Japanese society near the beginning of its career as imperialist power. Is the film's Kushami a faithful recreation of the (human) protagonist of Soseki's novel? If so, this version of the imaginative and productive Soseki takes self-deprecation to an extreme. Kushami is a lazybones and ditherer, who continually bemoans his position as middle-school teacher, who never seems to get anything done and who wastes a huge amount of time allowing himself to be distracted by uselessly chattering "friends," especially the intensely annoying Meitei (well-played by Juzo Itami). Any sensible person would have thrown this jerk out on his first visit. The cat of the title is cute and the source of some amusement but not the major character some of the publicity suggests. Among the film's few noteworthy moments: a policeman striking several unruly students (a foretaste of the militarized authoritarian society to come?); Kushami's accidental view of his very attractive niece in the nude and the apparent pleasure this gives him.

It is hard to imagine that the original novel was not wittier, more satirical and more entertaining than this film. As always, Nakadai and coworkers deliver some wonderful performances but a cinematic masterpiece this is not.

Barry Freed

Onimasa (1982)

"The Japanese Godfather"

[3/10 · 27 June 2008]

Shown in the Film Forum's 28-film Tatsuya Nakadai retrospective (NYC, Summer 2008) under the title "Onimasa," Hideo Gosha's 1982 gangster family epic "Kiryûin Hanako no shôgai" fully qualifies as "The Japanese Godfather." Is there any doubt that Gosha hoped to cash in on the box office and Academy Award successes of its U.S.-made predecessors, "The Godfather" (1972) and "The Godfather Part II" (1974)? For me, at least, and, I suspect, for others who are not charmed by Scorsese-style glamorized gangsters and their macho excesses and despite its two awards and nine Japanese Academy nominations, this multi-decade saga of the Kiryûin clan — patriarch Masagaro (aka Onimasa), wife Uta, adopted daughter Matsue, biological daughter Hanako and Onimasa's household staff of bully boys, servants and concubines — and its enemies amounts to a colossal waste of time, treasure and talent. This is not to say that Nakadai and company did not turn in highly skilled and memorable performances. They certainly did that and, in the process, reached every step on an actor's emotive ladder from extreme subtlety to massive scenery-chewing. Nevertheless, the great Nakadai's frequent full-circle mood changes were not always fully convincing, drawing attention to the actor and away from the character. (Was the director to blame for these lapses?) The dreadful music by Mitsuaki Kanno left this reviewer wondering whether or not it was intentionally ugly.

An underlying theme of "Onimasa" was its portrayal of 20th century Japanese gangsters as cartoonish reincarnations of the ancient samurai caste (the armed enforcers of feudal rule) in the era of modern capitalism. This leitmotif could have been the basis for significant socio-historical observations but the film does not pursue such lofty aims. Instead, while Gosha does not ignore Japan's tumultuous labor struggles of the 1930s, his approach is the all-too-familiar one of market-oriented filmmakers: subdued sympathy mixed with trivialization. Thus, at the behest of his Big Boss, Suda, (who is seen getting his orders from the railroad owner), Onimasa tries to intimidate the leaders of a railway strike into submission. But the forthright and courageous behavior of one of these men, Tanabe, (which includes taking a vicious beating without saying "uncle") causes Onimasa to undergo a change of heart. (The word "capitalism" actually appears in this sequence!) The gangster then risks his position by defying the Big Boss and, even more unbelievably, invites Tanabe to become his son-in-law! But it is one thing to sentimentalize a gangster and quite another to show more than a modest degree of sympathy for a "red." Subsequently, the politically-demoralized Tanabe describes himself as "too weak." To avoid interfering with their glamorization, we are not shown the sordid details of the means by which the gangsters extract their income. Even the English subtitles conspire in this effort. Inexplicably, the word "yakuza" (gangster) is rendered repeatedly as the much tamer "gambler."

For me, the only rewarding aspect of this gangster soap was its female component. Several of the women and girls in this epic not only inhabited meaty and pivotal roles but acquitted themselves admirably, with power and guts. The character of adopted daughter Matsue was an especially compelling one, both played as a girl by Nobuko Sendo and as a woman by Masako Natsume. Growing up under the unfeeling "care" of Onimasa's unloved wife, the tough-as-nails Uta (played by Shima Iwashita), the girl becomes beloved and protected by the gang of ruffians that also inhabits the house, in a relationship reminiscent of Donizetti's opera "La Fille du Regiment." Among the daily domestic chores of young Matsue is that of conveying to his concubines which one (or two) Onimasa has chosen for the night. Despite all efforts by her "family" to reduce her to servant status, Matsue insists on attending primary school and, after she secretly passes her examinations, high school. When "father" Onimasa vigorously objects that girls don't need high school, the willful Matsue prevails anyway. (There is more than a taste here of the oppression and degradation of women in male-dominated society and Gosha certainly deserves credit for making it unmistakable.) Maturing into an educated, perceptive and courageous woman, Matsue was, for me, a symbol of what this film could have been. Also powerful was Uta's death scene, in which she achingly recalls her husband's original love for her. These humane touches, however, were not sufficient to counteract the film's many repugnant qualities. It is unfortunate that Gosha's evident compassion for human suffering did not fully inform his understanding of society in general.

Barry Freed

Les Lip - L'imagination au pouvoir (2007)

An essential film for all opponents of capitalism

[10/10 · 13 May 2008]

I wish to register my agreement with and support for philipbn's excellent review of this essential film — with one rejoinder. It has become quite fashionable recently, among various commentators, to "discover" the domination of finance capital over all other forms in contemporary capitalist society. Such "discoveries" are late by nearly a century. V.I. Lenin analyzed the triumph of finance capital in his seminal work "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism," published in 1916(!).

One of the great strengths of "Les Lip" (for those who are politically prepared to grasp it) is its deeply perceptive portrayal of the psychology of reformism and the reformist. The strike leader who decides to work with management after the factory's takeover by "enlightened capitalist" Neuschwander convinces himself that he is doing something useful for the factory's workers and scoffs at accusations that he is a traitor. He simply is incapable of recognizing his betrayal. How much unnecessary blood has been shed because of those with his mentality!

The film's main weakness, in my opinion, was its failure (and that of the strike leaders) to objectively analyze the strike's long-term goals and its prospects of meeting those goals. The leaders actually seemed surprised when the French ruling class decided to unleash the CRS riot squads and retake the factory.

For me, the most thrilling moments in the film came with the outpouring of support for and solidarity with the Lip strikers by workers from all over France and from other countries as well. Taking a vacation from one's job in order to help the strikers and to learn from them became a widely popular activity. The progression from this wonderful state of mind to its ultimate fruition — a workers' government — dangled tantalizingly above this reviewer's head and made me ache for the day when such exemplary proletarian solidarity comes again, even, one may hope, in the reactionary USA.

Barry Freed

August Days (2006)

Spaced-out in Catalunya

[1/10 · 22 November 2007]

The most irritating thing about "Dies d'agost" (August Days) is not simply that NOTHING HAPPENS in this film but that director Marc Recha has the nerve to pretend that this film is some sort of homage to leftist Catalan journalist Ramon Barnils. Unless mentioning Barnils' name a few times constitutes an "homage," this pretense is an utter fraud. You will learn virtually nothing about Barnils in this film nor about the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) nor about the special role of Catalunya in that war. You also will not learn about the collective punishment inflicted on the heroic Catalan people for years afterward by the victorious and vindictive Franco.

The footage of the Catalan countryside is very beautiful, of course, but "Dies d'agost" does not have an extensive and varied enough collection of such scenes to qualify as a travelogue. The large number of stills shown — not very illuminating images of the forest floor, for example — is the clearest indication of the paucity of ideas here. The aimless drift of brothers Marc and David during their camping trip does not produce compelling cinema. On the contrary, one's strongest impression is of a film made by and for spaced-out, middle-aged hippies. Don't waste your time. Read a good book about the Spanish Civil War instead. (I recommend Felix Morrow's scathing "Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Spain," which includes a gripping account of the 1937 Stalinist-led purge of the revolutionary left in Barcelona.)

Barry Freed

Thirst (2004)

Palestinian patriarchal nightmare

[2/10 · 19 November 2007]

A Palestinian patriarch has moved his wife, son and two daughters to an abandoned settlement (former Israeli military outpost?) in a desolate valley, where they survive by (illegally) cutting down trees and burning them to charcoal, which they sell. The patriarch has sought this isolation, at least in part, to escape from the public shame brought about by his older daughter's "disgrace" (rape?) years earlier. The family's bleak existence is made far worse by the father's obsessive, brutal and dictatorial character.

To accept the premises of the film, you are required to suspend credibility. How could these people avoid discovery when they build huge fires at night in an area patrolled by the Israeli Army? Why would any of the family members tolerate the patriarch's abuses? But the largest question posed by this film, in my opinion, goes beyond the issue of plot credibility: Why was it made? The fact that the director is Palestinian does not prove that this film is anything other than it seems: an Israel-sponsored hatchet job, intended to reinforce stereotyped notions of Palestinians as brutal, uncivilized and incapable of self-government. "Atash" ("thirst") should make you thirst for an honest, realistic film about contemporary Palestinian life and Israeli oppression.

Barry Freed

Fados (2007)

Masterful portrayal of a national art-form

[8/10 · 20 October 2007]

Of the 5 previously-posted reviews, I thought the one by "sezme" the most perceptive. So far, though, no one has explained that Fado (pronounced fah' doo) is an intimate art form, consisting, at minimum, of a female or male singer accompanied by a plucked-string instrument. The essential accompaniment is the high-pitched, mandolin-like 12-string Portuguese guitar. In most contemporary settings, a conventional ("Spanish") guitar adds the bass notes. The songs are passionate and intense but not necessarily tragic nor somber. One of the film's greatest services is to show, via the excellent subtitles, the sublime folk poetry that makes up much of the lyrics of Fado.

A principal intention of the filmmakers was to present Fado as a trans-cultural phenomenon, an art form which has been translated and transmuted through the cultural lenses of many peoples, especially those of the former colonies of Portugal. They certainly succeeded in this intention, although the various submissions were of varied quality and, obviously, did not suit the taste of some of the reviewers. For me, the low point of the film was the "rap" selection, an abominable form in general and particularly egregious in this setting. The pattern of audience applause after each segment, established at the beginning of the film, was broken here — by my loud "boo" — which elicited knowing chuckles from other members of the audience.

Given the film's scope, it is hard to fault the inclusion of dance. Some of it worked fairly well, other examples not so well. None of the choreography could be called inspired. One advantage of the world-wide excursion through forms of lesser quality, at least for me, was the enhanced joy produced by the return to "pure" Fado, which made up most of the later portion of the film. I especially liked the scene in the "night club," with three Fadistas, two female, one male, engaging in a sort of competitive conversation.

All in all, "Fados" is a rare internationalist endeavor, a film about Portuguese culture made in Spain, where awareness of its less populous neighbor is, perhaps, even lower than that of Canada in the U.S. Allowing for a few misguided camera effects and hokey "fado" incarnations, this film remains a genuine work of art, an expression of overwhelmingly good taste in a time when that is a scarce commodity. Carlos Saura and company should be very proud!

Barry Freed

Sun, Moon and Star: Part 1 (1961)

Chinese shaggy dog "epic"

[3/10 · 20 October 2007]

Brian Camp's review (which see) supplies an adequate summary of the film's plot and correctly lauds its excellent cast, whose performances, however, often verge on the overcooked. The leading male character is a complete schmuck — as far as his approach to his three "lady loves" is concerned. Somehow, each time he meets a new one, his "love" for the previous one seems to fade away. That such clueless behavior cannot lead to romantic success should not surprise anyone. The enduring, close friendship of lady-loves #1 and #2 that follows their desertion by this cad is quite touching, probably the best thing about this overlong, soapy, shaggy, Chinese dog.

Camp's review, however, says nothing about the film's most glaring omissions. The invasion of China by Imperial Japan was legendarily brutal, especially in its treatment of civilians. The film shows no instances of destruction of houses, villages, towns etc. and no scenes of torture, rape or execution of captives. Indeed, we never even see the invaders themselves! (Why? So as not to offend the regime of leftover war criminals that, by 1961, had become a firm U.S. ally?) Any hint of Chinese suffering comes to us second hand, at best. But the real falsity of this epic can be grasped by its principal omission. Imagine a war story of China in the 1930s and 1940s which never mentions the Communists! The flags that are shown being held aloft during the war's-end celebrations (1945) are those of "Nationalist" China, i.e., the flag of Chiang Kai-Shek's Kuomintang. How, then, did the Communist Party of China take power only four years later, precipitating the wholesale flight of Chiang & Co. to Taiwan? Anyone who knows the history of that era knows that the Kuomintang's defeat was due largely to their persistent unwillingness to fight the Japanese invaders, expending most of their energy instead on attacking the Communists, which allowed the latter to don the mantle of "the true Chinese patriots." To give the impression that the Nationalists defeated the Japanese invasion by their own efforts is to perpetrate a colossal, historical fraud, one that even a rabidly anti-Mao Hong Kong audience must have found hard to swallow.

Barry Freed

Ratatouille (2007)

An earthy delight

[9/10 · 5 October 2007]

I will never look at the humble title dish the same way again. Beautifully artistic, non-cutesy animation, charming music and vocal characterizations, witty, snappy dialogue that is MUCH too sophisticated for children, TWO simultaneous success stories (1: true talent will out; 2: oaf makes good), a rocky-road-to-love story starring a very gutsy female, a terrifying but ultimately soft-hearted food critic, a cultured arch-villain, the mad competition for restaurant star ratings, overcoming the barriers of inter-species mutual mistrust and — above all — a celebration of those greatest of human inventions: good food and wine. What more could one ask? (A film of deeper social significance, perhaps, which explains my 9 instead of 10 rat-ing.) If you don't love this film you probably are dead.

One thing I haven't figured out: why did the rats come in two colors, brown and bluish-gray? Will someone please explain the significance?

OK, where's that zucchini . . .

Barry Freed