“Trotsky” : the pornographication of history
In one of the opening scenes of Trotsky, the 2017 television mini-series produced by Russian state television and directed by Alexander Kott and Konstantin Statsky,1 Trotsky is travelling on his […]
Category Archives: movies
What is a social revolution and how does it come about?
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to watch Maestra, a short documentary about the 1961 mass mobilisation to eradicate illiteracy in the early years of the Cuban revolution.1 […]
Loveless and A Gentle Creature – two flawed but brilliant Russian films
Andrey Zvyaginstev’s Loveless is not as good as his earlier masterpiece, Leviathan. But it has some moments of brilliance, and even at less than his best, Zvyagintsev captures the essence […]
Why ‘Vaxxed’ gets a hearing (and why the defence of vaccination can’t be left to doctors)
I watched the movie Vaxxed – from Cover-up to Catastrophe recently. It has been generating a great deal of excitement and controversy as it does the rounds in New Zealand. […]
A meditation on family violence
Maea, the central figure in Tusi Tamasese’s movie One Thousand Ropes, is a man haunted by his violent past. He lives in a barren, cramped, dark apartment – typical of […]
Ex Machina – a porno flick for the thinking man
I’m sorry: if you are looking for porn, you will be disappointed. There is little in this movie that would raise the eyebrow of the censor. The pornographic content of this […]
“Really living life” vs the Russian Revolution: Watching Doctor Zhivago fifty years on
When you’re trapped in an aeroplane seat for twelve hours, you will watch almost any movie to take your mind off the noise of the engines and the thought of […]
The war of all against all – a review of Andrei Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan
On the northwest coast of Russia there are settlements where stubborn and resourceful human beings eke out a living, hauling fish from Arctic seas. The seashore is littered with the […]
China, class collaboration, and the Indonesian killing fields
Third part of an investigation of the background to the 1965 massacre of up to a million Communist Party supporters in Indonesia, described but not explained in Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary […]
The strength and weakness of ‘The Act of Killing’
The recent documentary by Joshua Oppenheimer, ‘The Act of Killing‘, provides a chillingly intimate portrait of some aging thugs who, nearly fifty years ago, took part in one of the […]
A worker at large 