Segoy

The friendly face of German fascism, brought to you live from the fairy-tale town of Nuremberg.

This film has been described as horrible, disgusting, infamous and what have you. The interesting thing is that it's horrible only because everyone knows what followed, and because we have learned to look at images of swastika flags with revulsion. This film is really about some blokes enjoying themselves on a field, with lots of silly parades, speeches about how Germany's suffering has made its people special, and other diverse alarums. There are one or two remarks about 'racial purity', but for instance Jews are not mentioned even once.

But there is also a vague reference (the main culprit calls it "a dark shadow" in one of his speeches) to what happened several months earlier, when, in June, Hitler ordered the SA leadership murdered in cold blood. This act was condoned by most of the German people, and these are the same people we see waving and cheering and saluting. With that in mind, yes, the film takes on an added, horrible subtext, a feeling that something was definitely rotten in the republic of Germany.

Riefenstahl has always maintained that her point of view was an apolitical one, and that the work should be regarded as a work of art. I am not well-versed enough in the history of cinema to have an opinion on the artistic and technical merits of this film (aside from the tedious marching music) but I can easily imagine that back then it was quite an achievement, both as a work of art and as a relentless piece of propaganda aimed at this specific 1935 audience. I can also imagine that Riefenstahl was too caught up in what she did, to actually realize what was happening around her. She was not the only artist who, with 20/20 hindsight, should have known better.

View this film as a historical document, just maybe not an accurate one. And try to see the excellent documentary 'The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl' for some context.

Yesterday I saw this one on DVD. I had seen it once before in a movie theatre, maybe 15 or 20 years ago, and I remember being underwhelmed, even though I was aware at the time that in its day it must have been the definitive SF movie.

However, what I saw on DVD this time around actually did impress the hell out of me. In the opening scenes: yes, this is how primitive man might have looked like. No chimps (though I think I spotted two somewhere), no people in monkey suits, but an actual unknown species of primate. Then, cut to the 21st century: this part, largely exposition, is rather dull and slow, and looks like it was put there mainly for the cinematographers to show off. Zero-gravity toilets, oh my, how clever, yeah right.

The movie really comes into its strength, though, during the Jupiter mission part. The horror we're confronted with is almost purely psychological. The action here is reported in such a cool and understated fashion that it grips you much harder than it has a right to. If I look at what this film accomplishes here, and compare it to present day flicks with their hugely overdone action sequences, spectacular effects, fight scenes, aggressive music, in other words: cheap thrills - I have to conclude that, yes, this movie deserves its reputation.

I'm a little more doubtful about the enigmatic 'beyond Jupiter' stuff: the swirling colours continue swirling for entirely too long, and the final scenes do little to make up for that. And I am not convinced about the legitimacy of expecting your audience to suddenly understand that esoteric Starchild stuff after taking them by the hand, neatly explaining everything to them as you go for the entire first two hours of the film.

And then signing off with that Johann Strauss' waltz music. Fitting at that point, true, but I wish Kubrick's choice here could have been a bit less inane. Ravel has written some nice waltzes, too...

This one is 35 years old. Still, it remains one of the most intelligent SF movies in existence. That, despite its flaws, makes it a classic.

This may have been intended as some sort of celebration of the human animal's sexual diversity, but as such it fails to do anything more than skim the surface. We are ponderously asked to accept that the gay boy gets the girl in the end, and that the straight blokes end up in bed with each other. "Does kissing her make me a het?" Kevin McKidd asks of his housemate - a flaming archetype exquisitely performed by Tom Hollander - after a bout of heavy petting with his new boyfriend's ex-fianceé. "Not unless you get an erection," he is told. The questions get asked, but obviously the film is at a loss for answers. And that's exactly the point. Or rather, the lack of it. Come on, *who cares* if this particular chap gets it on with a pretty girl? He already "looks and acts straight" anyway, and he's a carpenter to boot.

"Men's Lib" has never been taken seriously, and clearly this movie was not going to be the first one to do so. In this case it's a particularly revolting New Age kind of men's group, so that's alright.

Oh well. At least James Purefoy looked the part.