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.
LA CASA DE LOS BABYS UNMASKS THE BABY ADOPTION RACKET Some women with means in the United States want but cannot biologically have children. Many women in Latin America have children but cannot afford to care for them. The solution would appear to be for the Americans to adopt the babies. In La Casa de […]
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TAKING SIDES ASKS WHETHER FINE MUSIC COULD REALLY BE SEPARATED FROM NAZI POLITICS Taking Sides, directed by István Szabó, provides an intense prosecution of a man outside of a court, punctuated by scenes of Nazis, their followers, and the obscene carnage that they produced, along with the tragic opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Although
GREEN CARD FEVER EXPOSES IMMIGRATION SCAMS Green Card Fever, directed by Bala Rajasekharuni, is an exposé of the illegal and unethical traps of the immigration process in the United States, as seen through the experience of an Indian named Murali (played by Vikram Dasu). When the film begins, Murali is in Columbus, Ohio. He has
TYCOON DEPICTS DARK FORCES THAT BROUGHT DOWN A RUSSIAN ECONOMIC OLIGARCH Tycoon: A New Russian (in Russian the title is Oligarkh), directed by Pavel Lounguine, is a loose biopic about Russian billionaire and Kremlin fixer Boris A. Berezovky, whose cinematic embodiment is as Platon Makovski (played by Vladimir Mashkov). In a larger sense, the film
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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