I have the opportunity to screen movies to a somewhat sizeable audience quite regularly, and I need some recommendations, because my knowledge only extends so much. The audience will go from somewhat politically engaged to extremely radicalized, knowledgeable people (as much politically as with movies).
Be it an experimental documentary which subverts a whole political question, an astute analysis of a geopolitical situation, an emotionally devastating (or potentially hopeful) fiction, or just a very sensible poetic essay in the Chris Marker style or documentary like Paris is Burning, I need it all.
Preferably not something mainstream as that kind would already be widely available to watch for most and the goal is to widen the audience of lesser known movies that need to be shown just as much. Like really very obscure stuff preferably.
Thank you comrades.
edit : here's your list:
spoiler
Come and see
Tender Comrade
The North Star
Reds
My Brothers and Sisters to the North
The Spook Who Sat By The Door
Harlan County, USA
Matewan
Robocop
Z
Stop Filming Us
Gaza Fights for Freedom
Nuit et Brouillard
Der Fall Gleiwitz
Network
Dog Day Afternoon
The Unknown War
Weekend
La Chinoise
Blue Gold
Syriana
Dominion
Earthlings
Carnage
Okja
Lucio
The Act of Killing
The Look of Silence
The planet of the Humans
Seaspiracy
Hypernormalization
Hotel Terminus
Man With A Movie Camera
The Organizer (i compagni)
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
Property is No Longer a Theft
The Working Class Goes to Heaven
Hara-Kiri
The Human Condition
Pitfall
Woman in the dunes
Good Morning
Night and Fog in Japan
Three Resurrected Drunkards
Death by Hanging
Canoa: A Shameful Memory
Xala
Sorry to Bother You
Black Gold
Barry
The Times of Harvey Milk
Las Sandinistas
I have been too timid to watch “Come and See”, but am told that it is very powerful.
I found it overwrought and overly dramatic. Like, what the Nazis did in the Soviet Union was horrific enough, you don't have to make shit up.
That's possibly the dumbest take I've ever heard about this movie. How is a kid with PTSD who gets sad when he finds out his whole family has been exterminated overly dramatic?
Have you actually watched it? It's overdone, and I've since come to know that most Russian war films are totally overdone. The subject matter is compelling enough if they just stick to the facts. But no, they have to go off the rails and invent ridiculous stuff in an attempt to get even more of an emotional reaction. When you've got to exaggerate the crimes of historical Nazis in order to make your point, you may have crossed a line somewhere.
I don't follow. What crimes were exaggerated? The worst crimes depicted in the movie; rape, the holocaust by bullet, packing non-combatants into buildings and burning them to the ground, all happened. Führer Directive No. 46 instructed the SS to do exactly those things in occupied territory. There are numerous first hand accounts from Belarus and elsewhere of the Nazis committing these crimes. Am I just misunderstanding what you mean?
The scene where all the Germans are having a party and laughing sticks out in my mind. It's just dumb. They performed enough real atrocities without the filmmakers having to exaggerate and going over the top.
I love the film and somewhat agree with you, but I just don't appreciate the conceptual ending. Feels a bit overlong.
I get it though, between this and the overly dramatic representation of the nazis laughing and partying and stuff : you can't represent atrocities, it will only be a bastardization.
That's why the film relies on the perspective of the child : the war IS overdramatic, is traumatizing, and he has to cope with it. By imagining any of this never happening, by viewing the nazis as pure evil. It's a necessary mechanism to not become completely mad. And it fails, I guess. War will get through you and hollow your bones to the core.
My Brothers and Sisters to the North: a Korean woman with German citizenship uses it for an opportunity to tour and do a documentary on the life of people in North Korea. It's quite an interesting watch.
On a completely different note. The Spook Who Sat By The Door is a comedy/satire blacksploitation kinda film about the CIA's first token black man. And then he takes his knowledge and training and shares it with a black liberation movement. Really enjoyable and radical film.
shit, human beings shipped the same way as the merchandise-in-the-making they're extracting, that's the shit.
thanks a lot for the rec, will watch it. (if you have a high quality link i'm all there for it)
if anyone passes by and needs it, there's a bluray rip on some public trackers
I watched the movie, it's incredible
There's a really good movie series that came out a while back, it's somewhat unknown and very experimental. Apparently it contains heavy use of allegory to the rise of fascism, it's called Harry Potter, there were 7+ movies made.
Not super obscure, but Matewan is amazing, has James Earl Jones, and I’d about unions fighting Pinkertons
My partner and I have never seen Robocop. Aside from it being an 80s action staple, is there some red meat to it for me as a Marxist? I know the movie itself is suppose to be a critique of police, but aside from that, any noteworthy leftist ideas in it that makes it worth mentioning in this context?
But would it be a fun movie to get stoned and have fun with on a rainy night? Seriously, I've never seen it except for the very final 90ish seconds.
But would it be a fun movie to get stoned and have fun with on a rainy night?
Oh hell yeah, you need to see it. It's perfect for that.
You're gonna have such a good time. Robocop is amazing gory schlock and an intelligent criticism of Capitalism at the same time as well as just being a good action movie. Verhoeven is a champ
on the contrary it's great, it's hard to make a radical but still entertaining movie. for that u gotta master way too many fucking shit
Great little movie. Entirely self-contained and does its thing. Has many classic quotable lines. Probably people won't like it because it's pro-police and shows Robocop executing poors. ED-209 is one of my favorite robots of all of cinema. So powerful, and in the end felled by a flight of stairs.
Ever subscribe to Means.tv? They have a ton of documentaries that are significantly left of average.
I remember one about the Congo being good, Stop Filming Us I think it was called.
Gaza Fights for Freedom is on there too (probably YouTube or at least somewhere else as well I’d guess)
My main point was to have a look at what they have, mainly because it would probably convenient to have a relatively large cache in one place
There’s undoubtedly a bunch of goofy shit there too, might have to dig a bit
well no I didn't know about it and thanks a lot for introducing me to it ! I'm gonna dig in
Nuit et Brouillard a film about what the Nazis did once they took over Europe. Serious Film, with subtitles.
Der Fall Gleiwitz a bizarre film about the Gleiwitz incident which was used to start WWII. You could not get a more East German movie than this. The music is particularly good, and usually I hate black and white but this movie uses it really well. Good thing we don't have false flags any more!
Network (1976) still relevant today.
The Unknown War a series that's probably way too long but narrated by Kirk Douglas and shows WWII from the Soviet side. From the brief bit of time in the 1970s when detente was a thing and the US cracked a bit open.
+1 on Network. It's frankly disturbing how so many of the things which are intended as gross exaggerations are just facts of life now. Parody is impossible.
looking great thank you. that east german movie looks dope. yeah Nuit et Brouillard, incredible film. I think every single kid in France has seen that one in secondary school. straight to the point.
Z is pretty good. It's French but has English subtitles, and is a fictionalized story of the assassination of a left-wing Greek politician in 1963.
that's right in the alley considering most people that will be watching speak french.
I wonder why I didn't know that one it looks great. thanks a lot. oh, it's costa-gavras ! yeah that might be well known, why didn't I see this before
Godard can be a bit wack and stupid but Weekend is a banger and la chinoise is a bit of sporting sectarianism
yeah thanks I haven't seen all Godard, will def watch them. thank you.
watched this doc in a geography class about 13 years ago. Blue Gold. about water conflicts, past, present, and future. talks about privatization schemes and neocolonialism. i showed it to my lib mom and it alone pushed her real far left.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Gold%3A_World_Water_Wars
nice I'll add that to my list, thank you. I hope she's still there with us
How about something like Dominion or Earthlings? If you want something a little less moralizing and a little more strange, there's Carnage, or honestly even Okja is good, especially if you can have a tiny discussion and point out that the factory farm scenes in that are incredibly mild compared to reality.
Not sure if someone here is going to take it down brutally, but I enjoyed Syriana (2005) when I watched it as a lib some years back. It has a ton of subplots that meet together featuring CIA fuckery, a wealthy Arab leader trying to make reforms, a poor immigrant, and a consultant. Some famous actors so that might be appealing to your audience.
Oh! Also, Lucio a documentary about a Bank robber/forger that helped fund the partisans and anarchists.
