Category Archives: Film Reviews

Breathe In (2013) – Drake Doremus (dir.)

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Breathe In - happy family

Breathe In – happy family

Spoiler alert. DON’T read this review if you plan to see this film!

This is a stereotypical film, with stereotypical characters, a stereotypical plot and a stereotypical end.

Four main characters:

The husband. Reaching the dangerous age and the mid age crisis. A musician, but not as good as he would like and in the old adage, those who can’t do, teach. He plays occasionally in a local orchestra and is going for a better job, but he has lost the confidence of youth and doubts if he will get it. At the same time he seems to be doing quite well. After all how many homes do you know that have a baby grand piano in the entrance hall?

The wife. Dutiful, has worked ‘hard’ to provide her husband with a good and secure home, with all the trimmings. Has successfully brought up their daughter. Her biggest aim in life is to amass the biggest collection of ceramic biscuit barrels – a quite unique challenge. Supportive of her husband but with a bit of an acid tongue which means she doesn’t always go the whole way in carrying out her traditional marital role in being a dutiful wife. An organizer, but mainly of domestic trivia.

The daughter. Thinks she’s an adult but really immature, perhaps the result of being brought up in a biscuit barrel collecting household. Not an intellectual or a musician but an athlete. Considers she can take a relationship break-up but inside she is hurting. Reaches the age of 18 during the course of the film and does a little girl dance when presented with a new car on her birthday. That dance could have been seen as a bit of a joke if it wasn’t for what else happens in her life, she is really still a little girl. A poor little rich girl – if not millionaire status.

The outsider (and home-wrecker). She is literally an outsider. She British on a sabbatical in a north American town. She is truly a genius as a musician – which she shows when the husband (for some inexplicable reason) tries to humiliate her on her first day in the piano class he teaches. Why she would be attracted to him after that episode is a wonder. She’s mature for her age, in that way the opposite to the daughter, and is told so by the husband when they have an innocent few beers after a swimming gala gets washed out. But she comes with her own baggage. Father dies at an early age, lived with her uncle, to whom she was very close, and he has died just before she leaves for America. That death has meant that she has rejected the piano as it brings back too many bad memories – the uncle was a brilliant pianist as well.

The Plot. There’s not a great one. Intimate, guilty eye contact between the Outsider and the Husband from the beginning. She understands him. She may not intend to do so but she effectively seduces him after finding the local boys immature and after only one thing. They make a very amateurish and last minute plan to run away together. But before they get any further than a few miles down the road a message is received that the daughter, now aware that there is something going on between her father and the outsider, gets stupidly drunk and crashes her new car.

The mad rush to the hospital. The unity between mother and father over what they have in common, i.e., their daughter, this after the mother had also realised through the empty wardrobes that the two had run away together and as a consequence, in her anger, had broken some of her ceramic biscuit barrels – an indication that the family equilibrium had been disturbed.

The last time we see the Outsider she is sitting alone, beside the baby grand, when the parents come home from the hospital. The daughter is not seriously hurt. Her pretty features are undamgaed and all she sports is a plaster over one of her eyes.

The next (and last) scene is a repeat of the one that opened the film. The three of them are in the garden of the house having their photos taken by a professional photographer, this is obviously an annual ‘family tradition’. They all smile. Any transgressions have been forgiven.

The fourth person is absent.

Family values have won the day.

We steal secrets – the story of Wikileaks

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We steal secrets - the story of Wikileaks

We steal secrets – the story of Wikileaks

‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.’

Joseph Heller, Catch-22

The director, Alex Gibney, has stated that his ideas changed when making this film. At the beginning he thought it was about the ‘machine’ but what it’s actually about is ‘wildly complex, interesting and extraordinary people’. And his depictions of these people, particularly the two who are in the forefront of the controversy following the massive disclosure of secret US files in October 2010, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, says a lot about those who bask in the limelight of others but disappear back under their stones when the going gets tough.

Once the Obama administration became aware of the imminent disclosure of their illegal, vicious, murderous and reckless activity, first in Iraq and then in Afghanistan, they declared all out war on their perceived enemies. Their principal targets were a successful Australian hacker and a young US soldier working in intelligence analysis in a quiet Army base outside of Baghdad.

The hatred that the American establishment has for these two individuals is palpable and comes out clearly in the documentary. State officials, including the supposed liberal (and at one time possible first woman US President, Hilary Clinton) as well as ‘shock-jock’ TV presenters and head-banger right wingers predicted the end of the world as we know it and some of these crazies even called for ‘contracts’ to be taken out on Assange – they don’t need to do that for Manning as he’s already in their clutches.

This approach is contrasted with the ‘reasoned’ and quiet declarations of the avuncular Michael Hayden, at one time head of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), filmed at the bottom of a dark wood panelled staircase, a location oozing wealth and power. Being head of the CIA, one of the biggest criminal organisations in the world with a history of destabilization of legitimate governments and their substitution with neo-Fascist regimes, such as in the Congo in 1961 and Chile in 1973 (to mention only two) he would have an insiders knowledge of the secrets the US doesn’t want the world to know about.

But for all his soft-spoken words he revealed ‘secrets’ of his own and the title of the documentary comes from his admission that ‘we (the US) steal secrets’. Now that’s no real revelation and only those who are extremely naive would be surprised by such an admission. But by admitting the truth of what the western intelligence agencies are doing, and have done for decades, he merely exposes the imperialist countries for the hypocrites they are.

For 45 years, during what was known as the Cold War, western propagandists tried to make people believe that it was only the evil communists who were gaining information about their own populations. What this approach lacked was any historical context and background. In the same way that individuals can be accused of paranoia the socialist countries were very much aware of the activities of foreign imperialists in trying to destabilise their societies. For example; the British and American attempts to foment unrest in Albania; the support given to Greek Fascists in their fight against progressive, anti-Fascist forces: and the open support provided by the west in fomenting disorder in Hungary in 1956.

In the film Hayden tries to give the impression, without actually saying so, that the stealing of secrets was from the enemies of the United States’ much vaunted (but rarely experienced by the vast majority of the population) ‘freedom and democracy’. This interview would have taken place long before the most recent disclosure to show up western imperialist hypocrisy by Edward Snowden. The PRISM programme showed that the US will spy on anyone and when caught out the reply from the administration was that it’s data collection would protect the American people from ‘terrorism’, the cover all for anything since the attack on the tower blocks in New York in 2001.

An investigation in Britain into the legality of what GCHQ (the British government’s spy centre) did in relation to PRISM, and also in the bugging of ‘friendly’ countries diplomatic representatives during conferences in the UK, came to the conclusion that it was all legal – surprise, surprise. And no doubt these activities are legitimate in the US as well. But this legitimacy is merely based upon the will of 535 people in the US and 650 in the UK – the numbers on the respective parliamentary legislatures. Due to a parliamentary fetishism that exists within those two countries these decisions do not get challenged, they may be legal but are they what society in general wants?

Wikileaks seeks to ask that question by releasing documents that are normally kept from the general population even though they are the ones who have provided the resources that allow governments to carry out their activities on the national and international stage. Even though here is a mad rush to privatise everything in sight in most countries throughout the world it’s still the public who pay billions of pounds to prop up the military/industrial complex that is such an important player in the field of espionage. So the people involved are ‘public servants’ but how often are the accountable to, and do they really serve, the public?

But this issue, this principle, seems to get forgotten in the second half of the film. Those who are in support of Assange at the beginning find reasons to distance themselves from him at the end.

The reasons?

‘His paranoia means that he thinks everyone is out to get him’. Paranoic he might be, but there seems to be a lot of reasons for that.

‘He considers the cases brought against him by the two women in Sweden are part of a ‘honey-trap”. This gets complicated. But the sequence of events is strange. The call for his extradition only comes after the US is upset about the leak. Part of this argument is that the US would never put pressure upon another sovereign government for its own aims. In the same way that none of the governments that refused air space to the flight of the Bolivian President when it was thought that the latest whistle-blower, Edward Snowden, might have been on board, would ever had done so at the behest of the US Government. Also, without going into the details of the case, the issue with the women seems to revolve around a HIV test rather than actual forced rape, I assume an anomaly between Swedish and British law in this matter, but something that hasn’t been made clear in reporting in this country.

‘He considers that if an Afghan civilian is exposed as helping the invading forces he should accept the consequences of his actions.’ Now in all these wars of imperialist aggression the assumption is made that ‘we’ ( and I don’t include myself in that ‘we’) are the ‘good guys’ and all the rest are murdering blood-thirsty, indiscriminate terrorists. It’s not terrorism to kill innocent people (for fun) from a helicopter gun-ship half a mile up in the sky but it is terrorism to plant a bomb by the side of the road in an ambush of invading forces’ troops.

The good guys invaded Iraq with spurious and – we later learnt – totally erroneous intelligence and was hence an illegal war in the first place. But anyone, Iraqi or other, who considers that this invasion should be resisted is automatically condemned as a terrorist. This is surely the same stance taken by the invading Nazis in WWII towards resistance fighters in the occupied countries.

There was also a point that I found strange. Wikileaks promises total anonymity and untraceability, on their website, to anyone who wants to send information. But whistle-blowers can feel isolated and worry that they might be exposed. Now Bradley Manning was not exposed by anything published by Wikileaks but by a pathetic one time hacker who saw more fame and fortune by whistle-blowing on the whistle-blower and we are treated to his crocodile tears towards the end of the film. Due to that betrayal Manning is now undergoing a show trial in a military base in the US. But for some reason some of the erstwhile friends of Assange consider that there should have been some structure that could support whistle-blowers in the future. What world are they living on?

The whole persecution of both Assange and Manning is being made front page news in order to deter future whistle-blowers. Yes, the US administration (and other western governments) are angry at these two individuals but the reason for the high-profile trials, the potential punishments up to and including the death penalty and the extremist statements are all geared to prevent others from doing something similar in the future.

The attitude of the New York Times (which was characteristically pusillanimous and sycophantic), the self righteous British journalists and Gibney in this film in finding ways to not be seen to be associated with Assange (although with the argument that they are doing so to protect their own ‘integrity’) will only make the goal of the secretive states to act with impunity in the future all that much easier.

The Act of Killing – 2012

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Indonesian Anti-Communist Massacre 1956-66

Indonesian Anti-Communist Massacre 1956-66

‘The Act of Killing’ – about the anti-Communist genocide in Indonesia in 1965-6 – reminds us that the rich and powerful will stop at nothing to maintain their position and that there are always sufficient low-life scum bags to carry out their dirty work.

The ‘hero’ (if such a term can be used of a film populated by low-life hoodlums and thugs, fascist para-militaries, corrupt, sycophantic and venal politicians) is a mickey mouse one time ticket tout. It seems the main reason he was against the Communists in Indonesia in the early to mid 1960s was the fact that they campaigned against the showing of American films in the local cinemas.

This effected his income as he would cream his protection money off the price of the tickets sold to the ordinary punter, stealing pennies from those already with little. After this bold piece of criminality he would then cross the road to the local police station and then proceed to bludgeon to death any ‘communists’ that might have been brought in that day. After a while the smell of the blood became too much and ‘improved’ his killing technique by using wire to garrotte his victims.

‘Communists’ is in parenthesis as in the fascist genocide of 1965-6 in Indonesia you were a ‘communist’ if you were in any way opposed to the usurper president, Suharto. This included trade unionists, peasants fighting for something more than subsistence, writers and artists with a progressive leaning and anyone else who was against following the diktats of foreign imperialist interests.

Communists should never be surprised when they are targeted by reactionary forces. They should understand that if they do their job properly they are the bête noir of capitalism and imperialism and in the same way that quarter will not be given they cannot expect kid glove treatment in return. Unfortunately in too many incidences before and since the massacre of 1965/6 Communists in different parts of the world have shown an unbelievable naiveté in their dealings with capitalism and imperialism.

But it was in Indonesia that reactionary forces realised that branding anyone who was considered not totally malleable and compliant as a ‘communist’ gave the fascists a carte blanche to make the streets and rivers run with blood.

And this was with the support of the principal imperialists at that time, the British and the Americans. Under the ‘liberal’ Kennedy the American government and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were making noises and actual plans to unseat President Sukarno, seen as a threat to imperialist interests in the region and too friendly to the People’s Republic of China. The US intervention in Vietnam was stepping up and only increased when Kennedy was replaced by Johnson.

The British from the 1950s had seen Indonesia as a problem and potential threat to their interests in the region (after the British had been involved in another dirty and vicious counter-insurgency war in Malaya) and this didn’t change one iota after the replacement of the Conservatives by the Labour government of Harold Wilson. It was that Labour Government, coming in as it did after ‘Thirteen Years of Tory Mis-rule’ that gave the Indonesian fascists the green light to institute the ‘forgotten’ genocide of the 20th century.

For the murder of up to 3 million (no one has come up with a definitive assessment of the actual death toll) poor and humble members of the working class and peasantry has been virtually wiped from history. The Socialist countries condemned the senseless and mindless killings but the ‘democratic’ west said nothing. And considering the scale of the killings there hasn’t been much in the way of cinema representations of the events, ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’ (1982) directed by Peter Weir, being the only that comes to mind.

The genocide in Indonesia opened the flood gates to similar events over the course of the next 30 years. Governments or para-militaries in different parts of the world, from Indio-China to Brazil, from Haiti to El Salvador, from Ceylon to Nicaragua, killed ordinary working people with impunity, with the actual or tacit support of western imperialism

In ‘The Act of Killing’ the director allowed the now aged killers to re-enact their crimes in the cinematic style of their choice and the last major scene involved the massacre and total destruction of a village considered to be ‘Red’. This was a pre-cursor to what was to happen in Vietnam in the next couple of years. The US soldiers who attacked, raped, mutilated, massacred and burnt the village of Son My (known throughout the world as My Lai) on March 16, 1968, leaving 504 dead used the same template as the Pemuda Pancasila (Pancasila Youth) perfected in Indonesia less than three years earlier.

Before the re-enactment of the attack on the Indonesian village we see the para-militaries together with a present day minor minister screaming their blood lust. Even this minister finally realises that this is a bit over the top but suggests (on camera) to the director that the scene should stay in the final cut as it shows their ‘determination’ to keep Indonesia ‘Communist free’. After the filming of the village massacre, where the women and children are visibly traumatised, we are treated to the performance of some slug of a thug waxing lyrical about the chances of raping 14 year old peasant girls, ‘hell for her but heaven for me’. But this is not an historical reflection, more a hope for the future.

These attitudes lead us to what is the main message of the film. Being able to kill with impunity, without any sanction at the time or since; being able to boast about this openly more than 50 years after the event; being able to maintain a gangster culture which is openly accepted by those in power, in what is supposed to be a ‘democracy’ after the disappearance of Suharto from the scene; when you have a government minister speaking at a rally of the Pemuda Pancasila and, in all seriousness, argue that the root of the word ‘gangster’ means ‘free man’, and that such are good for the society; when the Chinese community clearly looks terrified when the para-military thugs pass through the streets (in a scene with another of the murderers we have him boasting that he just went along a street just killing Chinese mean, women and children because they were Chinese); has created a society based on fear.

Opposition to the corruption that is now endemic within Indonesian society has been minimal in the intervening years. And this pattern has been repeated in most of the countries where death squads have been able to persecute the poor and the indigenous communities. Even though the western imperialist might now condemn what happened in the past those acts of genocide have, in all too many cases, produced the required result – an acquiescent population that will put up with anything in order to avoid a repetition of the past.

The ‘hero’ of the film is shown going through something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder. As far as I’m concerned he can burn in his own personal hell, together with his soul mates from Vietnam, through Latin and Central America to Iraq and Afghanistan.