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• Mutually assured destruction?

  October 7, 2009 @ 10:52 pm | by Bryan

  

  Not too long ago, as part of a film course, I got to watch the 1964 film, Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. This hilarious satire pokes fun at the cold war notion of mutually assured destruction.

  As Stanley Kubrick brilliantly illustrates, mutually assured destruction was not too different from a bunch of powerful politician and generals playing chicken with nuclear weapons. The idea was that if war could be made to inevitably result in ‘mutually assured destruction’, keeping a finger on ‘the button’ would keep the other side from striking first. Put simply, no rational person plays chicken if they know for a fact that it will lead to their demise. In Kubrick’s film however, mutually assured destruction comically leads to just that.

  There is something almost as comical in the latest climate change controversy. The Americans don’t want to be bound by the Kyoto protocol if it means that China gets to continue polluting. At first glance, that position seems almost honourable, but it’s not. This isn’t a principled stance by the US against acts that may lead to the irreversible damage, if not destruction, of the global commons that is the environment. No, this is much more like a 3 year old’s “Me too!” tantrum. If China and India are going to keep on wrecking the planet and making a buck in the process, then no little thing like international law, international public opinion, principle or even common sense will be allowed get in the way of the superpower doing likewise.

  I’m tempted to sensibly look at both the American (with the EU playing the role of sidekick) and Chinese (together with the vast majority of the rest of the world) perspectives more deeply. But why bother? When all is said and done, there is very obviously a widespread lack of understanding, concern or both, about the results of man’s poor stewardship of the planet.

  Kubrick was definitely onto something. There comes a point at which the best response to the absurd, no matter how important, is to shake your head and laugh.

  I wonder if anyone is going to make a film or write a book with the subtitle How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Global Warming.

• Apologies

  August 13, 2009 @ 1:11 pm | by Bryan

  My apologies for this week’s unexplained silence from this blog. Things are back to normal.

  Below is an interesting video from the most racially polarised country that I am aware of – South Africa. It reminded me of the 1995 film, White Man’s Burden, with John Travolta, Harry Belafonte and others.

  Some of the comments on Youtube in response to the video got me thinking the fears around immigration that have been articulated in both the US and Europe. At heart is the fear that one day people will wake up to find that they are minorities in their countries. Implicit in that is the fear that they will be treated like minorities.

  I wonder what an Irish version of this film would look like.

  

• Jerusalema

  June 2, 2009 @ 11:40 am | by Bryan

  

  Gayatri Spivak’s essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” asks questions about whether society’s ‘underclasses’ can get heard. It is a question that I have been grappling with. Can those without power, both economic and political, express themselves to the rest of society?

  The Galway African Film Festival was held this weekend. The event included a seminar on East African film by film critic June Givanni. The main film, Jerusalema, was introduced by its producer, Tendeka Matatu. Both Givanni and Matatu had interesting things to say about the African film industry and perceptions of Africa abroad.

  As Givanni demonstrated through her numerous clips from Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Ethiopia, there is plenty of film talent in that part of the world. Interestingly, African filmmakers tend to tell not just different stories, but they also tell them in different ways to the generic Hollywood template. Besides the fact that the films Givanni showed were remarkably entertaining, they also challenge the stereotypes about Africa. Unfortunately, you and I probably won’t get to watch any of them. Our ability to watch a film is the result of a series of decisions made by those in the film distribution business. As profit, not cultural enrichment or even entertainment is the end goal of this business, the tried and tested films are the ones shown in cinemas and are placed on store shelves. This is true even of a film like Jeusalma, perhaps the best film I’ve watched this year.

  The fact that Jerusalema is struggling to get adequate distribution is worrying. It was made by accomplished filmmakers. It is immensely fun to watch. And if you want to understand what contemporary inner city Johannesburg is like, apart from moving in, I doubt you could do better than watch this film. If Jerusalema can’t get a global hearing, forget their ability to speak, the subaltern are on life support. Matatu and Ralph Ziman, Jerusalema’s director, are part of a global middle class. They aren’t even the subaltern and yet their voices are barely audible. How then does the poor, rural child in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia or Latin America get heard? What sort of self-determination do they have?

  Having read Rod Stoneman’s Chavez – The Revolution Will Not be Televised: A Case Study of Politics and the Media, I think the media, in a real way, gets to construct reality. The BBC has played a huge role in constructing Asia in my mind. So much so, there is little difference between their view of the region and mine. I suspect the same is true for many others. Unfortunately, their view on southern Africa, a region I know well, is wrong (in my opinion). It is, at the very least, at odds with that of the likes of Matatu and Ziman, whose own vies may be at odds with those of other Africa filmmakers and Africans who can’t afford to make films.

  If the power to represent, and in some ways to construct reality is proportional to economic power, maybe Spivak was right. Maybe the subaltern can’t speak. And maybe distributing Jerusalema isn’t profitable because we don’t want to come close to hearing them.

• The Rosebud Syndrome

  May 26, 2009 @ 9:10 pm | by Bryan

  Reading Stephanie McCrummen’s article, I couldn’t help but think of what Robin Wood called the ‘Rosebud syndrome’ in reference to the film industry. According to Wood,

  Money isn?t everything; money corrupts; the poor are happier … the more oppressed you are, the happier you are, as exempli?ed by the singing “darkies” of A Day at the Races (Sam Wood, 1937)…

  McCrummen follows a Kenyan immigrant who decides to return home with his family, leaving the creature comforts of the United States. The way her piece reads, her subject swaps the rat race for true inner joy and peace. That may be true, but in the words of a filmmaker I know, the stories that are left untold are just as important as those that are.

  It’s true that the recession has led many migrants around the world to pack their bags and return to their countries of origin. It is also true that the quality of life for some is better in their home countries. But there are some serious consequences of this growing trend that need to be highlighted.

  For one thing, remittances, the money that migrants send home, comes to more in sub-Saharan Africa than overseas development aid. The African Development Bank is concerned about what will happen in the coming months as that income decreases. The loss of remittances will probably lead to reductions in the numbers attending schools or with access to health care. As for the returnees themselves, not all will have accumulated savings. Some will return without very much money and may end up as burdens on their family networks where they were once bread winners. The simplistic, idyllic picture painted by McCrummen will not be every returning migrant’s experience. It might only apply to a minority.

  Any story that ‘shows the other side’ of Africa is a breath of fresh air. That said, it still remains true that the developing world will be disproportionately affected by this recession … even though it contributed least to the financial shenanigans that brought about the downturn. In that context, and bearing in mind the fact that the world is somehow capable of mobilising massive funds to protect big business, we shouldn’t ‘Rosebud’ the poor. I would hate to think that there are people out there who think that the migrants who are being forced to return will mostly be returning to paradise. That’s too much of a Hollywood view of the world to be realistic.

• Representation

  March 3, 2009 @ 8:30 am | by Bryan

  One of the classes I’m currently taking is on film studies. Perhaps the most contentious issue that comes up in just about every one of those classes is the issue of representation. Who gets to speak for whom and how are non-’mainstream’ groups represented?

  An interesting case in point is the highly successful Slumdog Millionaire. Most people who aren’t familiar with slum life in India feel that it is an eye opener as well as a positive, uplifting story. Some also feel that it highlights the plight of people who might otherwise go unnoticed. The hope is that once that plight comes to the surface, some action will be taken.

  I must confess, I haven’t watched the film yet. But similar arguments were made about Blood Diamond. My take on it, however, was very different. I felt that it reinforced stereotypes and told the one story of Africa that West has traditionally run with. Typically, this narrative has Africans in peril, with some courageous Westerner either coming to save the day (Blood Diamond and Tears of the Sun) or not (Last King of Scotland and Hotel Rwanda), condemning said Africans to unimaginable horrors. As you may have guessed, I don’t like the way Hollywood generally portrays Africans.

  Based on that, I was curious about how Indians would respond to Slumdog Millionaire. India has an impressive film industry of its own. As such, a film like that is not as defining as one that is set in a place like Sierra Leone which doesn’t have its own thriving film industry. Still, Priya Rajsekar’s opinion piece in this newspaper highlights her mixed feelings towards the Slumdog Millionaire. She notes that,

  “The mood of the moment is one of exhilaration, not just for those involved in the making of the movie, but also for Indians, worldwide. This despite the fact that it has taken this cultural treasure trove with more than a billion people over 80 years to get this far, and that too with a great deal of hand-holding by a British filmmaker.”

  Priya also points out that although the film avoids some of the worst caricatures out there, it does still emphasize one aspect of India at the expense of all the others. Newsweek’s Sudip Mazumdar takes a different view. In the words of this former ‘slumdog’, “I’ve met former slum dwellers who broke out of the cage against odds that were far worse than I faced. Still, most slum dwellers never escape. Neither do their kids. No one wants to watch a movie about that.”

• The Dark Knight

  August 13, 2008 @ 11:55 am | by Bryan

  

  This is a totally random post. But, why not?

  I finally watched The Dark Knight yesterday. Don’t ask why it took so long, I don’t have a good explanation. All I have to say about the film is that it really is that good.

  It really is.

• An American Tail – Immigration now and then

  July 22, 2008 @ 8:26 am | by Bryan

  I remember watching An American Tail when I was young. For those who have not watched the Spielberg classic, it looks at the fate of immigrants in America at the turn of the century. The main characters are mice that are fleeing persecution from cats. Some of the specific characters explored in the animated feature are Russian Jews, Irish, Italian and East European.

  The theme that really got me, even as a child, was captured by one of the songs the mice sing before reaching their destination. They sing, “There are no cats in America, and the streets are paved with cheese.” As soon as they reach America they discover that there are indeed cats in America.

  I was reminded of this film a couple of weeks ago when, discussing EU immigration policy, it was noted that “Europe does not have the means to welcome with dignity all those who see it as an El Dorado.” My first thought was that they should have instead said that there are cats in Europe.

  I understand that immigration is a prickly, emotive issue, especially as the world’s economy slows down. But as food inflation increases, people all over the world will have to choose between sticking it out and trying their luck elsewhere. Once upon a time immigration largely benefitted both America and Europe. Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek international, goes as far as saying, “…the United States’ potential new burst of productivity, its edge in nanotechnology and biotechnology, its ability to invent the future –all rest on its immigration policies.”

  Unfortunately, even America is now struggling with how to handle immigration. But just as in natural science there tends to be movement from areas of high concentration to low, people will tend to move from places with little wealth to those with more.

  Some cats are worse than others.