Films that bring previously obscured truths about the political process to the attention of the public, showing for example how offices of public trust are used for private purposes.
INITIALLY BANNED IN INDIA, SANDSTORM REVEALS A FIGHT AGAINST ENTRENCHED CASTEISM & SEXISM Some years before the release of Sandstorm (Bawandar), Sanwari (played by Nandita Das) of the Untouchable caste works as an organizer for a feminist organization in India to make some extra money for her family. Shobha Devi (played by Deepti Naval) hired […]
CATHOLICS LEGITIMATE IRISH SADISM IN THE MAGDALENE SISTERS Ireland once had a method for dealing with teenage girls who yielded to what the Catholic Church calls “temptation.” As illustrated in details so graphic that they may compete with the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps for sadism, The Magdalene Sisters presents the method by which
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PILLEGAL ALIENS EXCHANGE KIDNEYS FOR PASSPORTS IN DIRTY PRETTY THINGS “We drive your taxis, make your beds, and suck your cocks,” according to Dr. Okwe (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) in Dirty Pretty Things, commenting on the fate of illegal aliens in London. A physician who left Nigeria to avoid arrest and prosecution for a murder
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HEROD’S LAW EXPLAINS A BASIC PRINCIPLE OF POLITICS Directed by Luis Estrada, Herod’s Law (La Ley de Herodes) is a satirical tale that takes place (and was filmed) in the desert town of San Pedro de los Saguaros, México, where angry non-Spanish-speaking Indian residents, according to the fable, lynched three corrupt mayors from 1944 to
SOURCES OF IRAN’S POPULARITY IN IRAQ EMERGE IN MAROONED IN IRAQ Marooned in Iraq, directed by Bahman Ghobadi, is perhaps an Iranian counterpart of Saving Private Ryan (1998). Mirza (played by Shahab Ebrahimi) has been summoned by his estranged fourth spouse, Hanareh, presumably from a place in Iran’s Kurdistan at the border with Iraq. A
A COMMUNIST TERRORIST LOVES THE DANCER UPSTAIRS, BUT SO DOES HIS POLICE PURSUER Directed by John Malkovich, The Dancer Upstairs is a complex political mystery story based on the hunt for Abimael Guzmán, the founder of Perú’s Sendero Luminoso, in the 1980s. (The film’s title, thus, calls attention to a literary subplot piled onto the
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LILJA 4-EVER EXPOSES THE TEENAGE WHITE SLAVE TRADE Last year, the Political Film Society nominated Tricky Life as best film exposé for showing how the white slave trade operates between Uruguay and Spain. An even grimmer picture of the white slave trade, this time from Estonia to Sweden, is found in Lilja 4-Ever, directed by
In 1938, twenty-nine-year-old British stockbroker Nicholas Winton (played by Rupert Graves) began to organize an effort to have British families adopt Jewish children in Czechoslovakia as a part of what was called the kindertransport, which involved a total of some 10,000 children from Austria as well as Germany. Not all the “endangered children” were hustled
DARK BLUE BOLDLY DEMONSTRATES WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE LAPD Sometimes described as a paramilitary organization, the Los Angeles Police Department has several geographic divisions and often establishes special units in which officers are given autonomous authority apart from other police, developing their own headquarters, jargon, logos, radio frequencies, rituals, and slogans, with no direct supervision.
TWO REVIEWS SEPARATED BY 20 YEARS COSTA-GAVRAS’S AMEN DOCUMENTS THE NAZI HORRORS (February 15, 2023) Many films have emerged recently to contradict those who have denied the Holocaust. Amen, directed by Constantine Costa-Gavras has trumped them all, providing specific documentation from an unwilling participant who supplied gas to the death camps, with a story based