Friday 16 March 2012

Call the Midwife
(2012)

RATING:60%
FORMAT:DVD



Amusing drama marred by the political correctness of being a paean to the NHS - without ever deigning to explain the need for its existence. It also features clunky, expository dialogue along with a somewhat rose-tinted view of the UK lower class. This makes it all feel a bit too perfunctory for its own good - as if, curiously, it had not been drawn from the direct experience belied by the credits.

The series lacks insight into human nature; seeing people as merely exemplars of their class rather more than of their species. This lack of empathy is a great failing in a series that acts as if it actually had great feeling for others. Although a true story, it is not a very truthful one; the ultimate problem being its decided lack of a cultural context - which is merely taken as an assumed given. Despite the quality of the acting and the ever-present humor, one never feels for anyone here.

This is a world that does not exist; undermining the strength of the human spirit shown - a re-imagined past that is far more nostalgic than historically-accurate. This is the world in the abstract; lacking sufficient historical detail to convince - and sufficient context to justify the historical detail that is on show. Paradoxically, given its midwifery setting, this is a kind of dramatic stillbirth that is content merely to delight more than it saddens.

Here, Whites revise their own history to make sense of the cultural present; ie, the political correctness of pretending that one is not living in a declining culture because it lives very much in the past - exactly the same past, in fact, being re-imagined here. This series ultimately reflects an ethnic group that believes in its own specialness; a fallacy revealed by its lack of insight into that very belief, along with the implication that other cultures do not matter and, thus, only require scant mention in the dialogue.

However, like the tv-series that was, All Creatures Great and Small, an emphasis on giving birth elicits cheap tears from the audience; while melting the coldest of the cold. For no man that is born of a woman can resist the shedding of a tear for those newly-arrived in this world.


Copyright © 2012 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.co.uk) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Sunday 11 March 2012

Deculturalisation of the English People
(2000)

RATING:40%
FORMAT:Book



Reculturization of the English

White supremacist claptrap masquerading as logical thought and the usual White conflation of ethnicity with nationality.

When the author says English, he clearly means Caucasian, but lacks the honesty to say so - as if Englishness (in the White imagination) is somehow completely disconnected from skin color and is, therefore, entirely political. If it were, White organizations like the BNP simply would not exist since their members use racist epithets based on skin pigmentation - and nothing else.

To claim Whites cannot express their own ethnicity, as others do, is palpable nonsense since Whites have rarely been oppressed by others and so such overt expression has rarely been necessary. Through the agency of racism, Empire & Atlantic Slavery, Whites have continually expressed their ethnicity in a way quite unlike any other ethnicity. To claim otherwise, is to tacitly admit guilt for a negative past and to claim that such a past has nothing to do with the present - despite the fact that the present is largely based on the past.

‘Essential Englishness’ is not defined - only Whites, apparently, cannot do this when other nationalities & ethnicties do not possess similar difficulties (eg, Irish, Scots & Welsh). The reason for this is because there is nothing about England that is distinctively English - other than the rapacious imperialism, social parasitism and genocidal tendencies of its past that are being denied as being important.

This pamphlet features the usual White envy of other cultures, not because Whites have lost something but because they never really possessed it. Alongside this invidiousness, lies an implicit shame about the systemic genocide, torture, rape, murder, enslavement and theft of land and resources that characterized White English culture for 500 years. To reject this past means to reject much of contemporary culture; leaving Whites with little more than the anachronistic ridiculousness of Morris Dancing as a cultural base. The lack of pride in the achievements of their culture are thus laid bare for all to see.

The attempt to appropriate other cultures is made obvious by such things as the author’s greater interest in studying Classical Greek and Ancient Egyptian, much moreso than Old English - despite the fact that all three are classical languages, equally worthy of study. Whites, themselves, consider their own culture not as interesting as others despite the present (& concurrent) claim to inherent cultural superiority. A society always defining itself in terms of what it is not, is going to have a hard time turning this on its head and defining itself in terms of what it is.

There is also no mention of fact that the English imported a Levantine religion that made a palimpsest of paganism - a graft that did not really take since the country is now essentially secular. Jesus Christ was not born in Basingstoke, after all, but in Bethlehem. It is entirely typical that a Christian should forget his own religion’s hand in the problems he claims exists, when Christians have been wont to destroy other cultures precisely because they have so little of their own and so fear successful competition.

The lack of a deep-seated English culture also relates to its lack of mythology; referring, instead, to adopt Greek Myth as basal, rather than the more local Norse. This explains why the English lie about their traditions and customs being anything more than recent habits masquerading as ancient traditions. And also why there is a lack of formal rites of passage for Anglo young that go beyond learning to drive, losing ones virginity and binge-drinking. Much, for example, of the cohesiveness of Jewish culture lies in formal ceremonies like the Bar Mitzvah.

The author concludes that rapid cultural change leads to the cultural discontinuity we see in the West. But the essential problem is the pride that no amount of cultural reconstruction can produce because Whites have little to be proud of - mostly because of the confusion here between Englishness (cultural) and ethnicity (genetic). Instead, we see a guilt-ridden running away from a particular culture, as well as an evasion of the concept and practice of culture itself; hence, for example, the Americanization of UK culture - a US culture that is just as materialistically-inclined.

If the inherent and endemic White supremacism bound up in the concept of Englishness could be eliminated, then this pamphlet could become a good starting point for Whites to discover themselves. Self-destructively, Whites have commonly been opposed to ethnic self-identity - even their own - because they wanted to claim to be above ethnicity (ie, non-ethnic) and, thus, superior. But now that they have failed to prove such superiority, by destroying others, they desperately seek to redress their own failings by claiming others must embrace their empty culture; while openly admitting here to not having much to embrace. They admit the latter in the claim for a need for a cultural reconstruction. This book is, thus, an implicit argument for the very ethnic segregation it pretends to abhor - but it is far too late for Whites to claim a separate ethnicity when they have spent so much time and effort claiming otherwise. It is like claiming to be British only to find that the Scots no longer buy-into the notion of Britishness and henceforth only want to be Scots - as they have always been. The feeble English response to this has been to stop pretending the United Kingdom exists and desperately attempt to reclaim Englishness without a clue about how to define such a term - a cluelessness revealed by the similar lack of a definition for the word Britishness.

Fortunately, this opuscule should not waste much of any rational readers’ time.


Copyright © 2011 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.co.uk) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Wednesday 7 March 2012

Love Lies Bleeding
(2007)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD



Way above-average couple-on-the-lam-with-stolen-money thriller; deploying many of the clichés you’ve seen before in daring ways; leaving you uncertain as to the outcome of this emotionally-involving drama. (This, despite the ethical sleight-of-hand halfway through.)

Although the central couple has made a serious ethical error, you remain on their side throughout - despite the inevitable price they must pay. This works dramatically by incorporating the true-Christian definition of love so well that we actually believe the two young lovers (especially Jenna DEWAN) really are in love. The actors' personal chemistry helps with this superior trompe-l'œil.

Christian SLATER makes for a scary villain and the cast of relative unknowns make us believe it all completely. Above all, the screenwriter invests his characters with depth; using only a few strokes of his subtle pen and wasting little time with back-story in a neat, compact and strongly character-focused screenplay.



Copyright © 2012 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Tuesday 6 March 2012

District 9
(2009)

RATING:40%
FORMAT:DVD

A very technically-accomplished movie that starts badly, gets better and then proceeds to go nowhere interesting with its bizarre-but-emotionally-realistic premise. A politically-correct apartheid allegory that hints at the problems of a transition to democracy in South Africa, but which both lacks a story and is also somewhat nonsensical. How, for example, are technologically-superior aliens able to be oppressed by the human race with its inferior weaponry?

The problem with films like this is that they want to be clever political parables about White supremacy while still indulging in violent thrills and spills. And you cannot really have both unless you are very talented. Instead, the politics of the movie comes across as inane and lifeless - as though simply positing White guilt, but not exploring it, were enough to establish ones esthetic (& political) credentials.

In common with other movies made by Whites, Whites are shown as the only one's capable of saving marginalized minorities. This salvation message is accentuated by the fact that a White messiah, even with handicaps, is more capable than all the to-be-saved peoples combined. The lead character is painfully-incompetent and clueless - yet somehow able to partly-subvert genetic supremacism. There are few nods to self-determination because of the implicit belief that the oppressed are incapable of it; meaning that the oppression was, somehow, ultimately excusable and the White Man’s Burden still remains the unsolicited and alleged saving of Others - as it was under apartheid.

The other problem with the movie is technical: The alleged documentary feel of the movie is only that - a feel. At no point do we sense - as in the War Game - that this really is a documentary, since the events are so fantastical. Moreover, this movie is dramaturgically unimaginative and thematically unoriginal while its attempt to appear like a documentary soon wears thin since no documentary would be shot as this is filmed. This film has so little confidence in its own premise that it desperately wants you to believe the unbelievable.

Like the movies of Quentin Tarantino, this film simply collates features from better movies: ET, The Fly, Iron Man, The Defiant Ones, et al, to conceal a story that makes little sense and lacks adequate characterization to make us care. Better than Alien Nation, certainly - but not much.


Monday 5 March 2012

Séraphine
(2008)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD



The original Mrs Mopp, Séraphine de Senlis was an outstanding exponent of the Naïve School of Art. Her work was informed by her Catholic religion and a belief, akin to madness, that she was divinely inspired. Like all artists, she can do no other than listen to the little voice inside herself telling her what she must do to fulfill herself - no matter what the cost.

This numinousness is the film’s biggest plus and helps distract from the strict adherence to historical fact that produces a somewhat broken-backed narrative. Indeed, the story threatens to come to a dead stop, since it takes place over too many years for a two-hour movie. This partly ruins its emotional arc and risks losing its audience by cheating us of emotions that really need to be continually held for their greatest effect.

Ultimately, what holds the film together is the miraculous performance of Yolande MOREAU. Her habitation of the character is total and helps compensate for the unanswered question haunting the film: Why does Man need Art?


Copyright © 2012 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Saturday 3 March 2012

Dirty Dancing
(1987)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD

Apart from the odd fact that Western culture seems incapable of separating the concept “Dirty” from the practice of human sexuality, this is rather a good attempt to tell a love story through the medium of dance. The dancing stands in successfully for most actual sexual activity; being all the more erotic, passionate and expressive for that fact.

The dance here is more successfully-performed on stage, but the intimacy of cinema and the lack of a need to project emotions easily trump this; creating an uneasy tension on screen that appropriately-matches the cultural tensions shown; concerning a culture in transition from rigid and banal conformity to a freer expression of desire.

However, this class-war summer romance partly defeats its own analogy to the dance as a vertical expression of a horizontal desire by introducing sex that is a little too literal. Nevertheless, the emotional force of this drama is its most important aspect here, with sentiment unashamed of its feelings. This perfectly fits the emotional changes of puberty and the great fear of affluent Whites that the expression of feeling will invalidate the emotionally-repressive social hierarchy from which they materially benefit. As in Romeo & Juliet, sexual promiscuity is contrasted with love; materialism with ethical values - in the same way that the middle class hate the poor yet go out of their way to have slumming sex with them in order to pretend that they have no fear of the poor.

A good coming-of-age story replete with an enthusiastic virgin and a muscle-bound apparently-bad boy. And, underneath the pop-video aesthetic, there is a sound story of young, star-crossed love. While not in the William Shakespeare class, this is nonetheless highly-effective, emotionally, for all that and its various plot-holes.

Jennifer GREY and Patrick SWAYZE are both naturals for this story and play their parts with perfect aplomb. Both are fabulous dancers - the former perfect in the ugly duckling role. This goes a great way to making the entire film more literally-plausible than it is emotionally.


Copyright © 2012 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.