Global Spin’s weekly list of five rental movies to bring you up to speed with the past week’s world events
Game of Thrones
Let’s start with the big picture, shall we? Things are falling apart, everywhere you look: Both the U.S. economy and Europe are crumbling, and with them the global power structures that rested upon them. Whether it’s President Obama or Sarkozy, Prime Minister Cameron or Chancellor Merkel, the leaders of the Western world seem paralyzed in the face of the crisis. Turmoil on the streets grows as ordinary people realize that their leaders are doing nothing to help them, while violence escalates unchecked along the imperial periphery as new power clusters emerge and old alliances are broken. No single power center today has the ability to set things back on track. A perfect time to get familiar with George R.R. Martin’s Songs of Ice and Fire series, the first of which was presented earlier this year by HBO in the form of the miniseries Game of Thrones. Winter is coming, people. Best acquaint yourself with the grim realities of power and its limits.
The Karate Kid
Yep, you guessed it. Basketbrawl diplomacy this week in Beijing may have left some Americans with a sense that they were being victimized by Chinese bullies and referees. Fear not, America, Jackie Chan has your back. In The Karate Kid (as opposed to its ’80s forebears), 12-year-old Dre Parker (Jaden Smith, son of Will and Jada) moves to Beijing with his mom and finds himself set upon by a neighborhood bully. Mr. Han, Jackie Chan’s aging maintenance man in his apartment building teaches him the philosophies of Kung-fu, and the moves to best his opponents. But Chinese basketball fans who may be prone to seeing themselves as the victims of American bullying, the Karate Kid narrative is not going to cut it. They’re more likely to be renting fare of the ilk of Valley of the Wolves this weekend, a Turkish movie that paints a demonic portrait of U.S. troops in Iraq. Calm down, people…
Dreigroschen Opera
You know capitalism’s in crisis when Wall Street gurus are touting the wisdom of Karl Marx. One of the more darkly delicious Marxisant portrayals of capitalism onscreen would have to be Die 3 Groschen Opera, Georg Pabst’s Weimar-era cinema adaptation of the Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill musical of the same name (translated as Threepenny Opera). We may remember it best today for its song that introduces Mack the Knife, but it’s a ribald tale of venal bankers, corrupt politicians, cops on the take and other perennials of today’s global headlines.
Germany, Pale Mother
This week’s advances by Libyan rebels slowly encircling the capital inevitably calls to mind Berlin in 1945, encircled by the Red Army leaving hundreds of thousands of its residents, who have had to make their peace with the regime in order to survive, now contemplating a bleak future. The temptation, of course, would be to recommend Downfall, but we’ve already done that. For a darker take, try Helma Sanders-Brahms excoriating Germany, Pale Mother, which charts the lives of Berliners having to make their way through a traumatic collapse of the regime that had ruled their lives. Hopefully cool heads will prevail and the regime will surrender and the residents of Tripoli, even those who supported Gaddafi, will be embraced as part of a new Libya. Germany, Pale Mother is certainly a cautionary tale on how war can destroy the lives of people unlucky enough to live in a despised dictatorship’s capital.
Pan’s Labyrinth
Pope Benedict’s visit to Spain this week was overshadowed by violent protests against the pontiff’s presence. Even the Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Zapatero is no friend of the Holy See, having enacted laws on gay marriage and abortion that outraged the Vatican. So how did this overwhelmingly Catholic country develop such a tart anticlerical streak? For that you’d have to go back to the Spanish Civil War, and the Church’s longstanding role as a key support prop for Spanish feudalism and fascism. Many Spaniards associate the Catholic Church with a dark and repressive history they’d rather put behind them, and the more militant among them even take to the streets to challenge the Pope. For a glimpse into the mindset of a Spain traumatized by decades of fascism blessed by the Church, check out Guillermo Del Toro’s magnificent dark whimsy, Pan’s Labyrinth. Young Ofelia is taken to live with a new stepfather, Captain Vidal, a fascist military officer hunting for surviving fighters of the fallen Republic, but recoils from the horrors of his repressive authoritarian world into a fairytale that offers an allegorical path of resistance. You only have to remember which side the Church was on during the traumatic events of the Franco era to understand the depth of antagonism to it in some segments of Spanish society.
