Good stuff. Well, not really. Heavy subject matter, if anything. And the retching sound at the end was all too real for me (as someone that once went through an OD).
Honestly, I do like the subject matter of fascism (and especially neo-fascism nowadays). There’s the pre-fascist era, when it was just being developed, from the 1890s onward, and then there’s when it was actually coined by Benito Mussolini onward. And then there’s post-1945. Operation Paperclip, the rise of the white power movement in the 1980s and the terrorist attacks of the 1990s. And not to mention the “fourth empire” of the Ku Klux Klan during the Obama years.
I live in Virginia and that’s where the fiasco at Charlottesville happened with people invoking the “great replacement theory” meme, and you can connect that to “white extinction anxiety” during the late 1800s to 20th century.
The movie evoked all these thoughts for me and the normalization of it. I see it with several of my family members too. We are living through the growth of a new fascism in the United States, I feel.
I’ve been watching a lot of Iranian movies lately. I just watched Children of Heaven last night - beautiful movie, but pretty depressing as Iranian movies tend to be.
Do you have any other recommendations? Never watched any Iranian movies before.
The Lizard is pretty funny. it’s about a guy who escapes prison by pretending to be a cleric. anti-clerical, but a deeply religious movie I think.
probably the most ‘accessible’ drama would be one of Asghar Farhadi’s movies. A Separation and About Elly are both really good.
but Abbas Kiarostami is one of my favorite directors now - Taste of Cherry, Where Is the Friend’s House, Close-Up are all incredible. the cinematography is top class, any frame from his movies could be a painting.
Awesome, thanks for the recs. My interest is piqued