Syrchek

I think I finally came around this movie after months. My first review was sloppy and superficial. I've seen it months ago and since then I haven't give it much of a thought. But now it hit me from nowhere, I finally see what the essence of this piece of art is- it's about the art of manipulation.

There are only a handful of movies, every now and then a new one is made, for which it can be truly said that it represents some kind of a "document" or at least an amazing meditation of how we already live today and how we will live in the near future. In this regard I would put Inception right next to the Matrix. The later is in essence a film about a completely ignorant super-used workforce of humans, who haven't actually moved from their wombs yet, but at the same time they have computer generated illusions about how they reached "the peak of civilization". This kind of humanity is completely immature (but not pure, or innocent) until a New man comes from somewhere and decides to move from this cave of ignorance and unconscious slavery. Most of them stay there, some by their own free will, because it's pleasant.

Now the key thing about this movie, is not just that it's a long "journey into the mind", but what matters is what comes out. It takes inception to make perception. That's the whole trick. The conciseness is a product and the subject of manipulation doesn't know a bit about it. He wrongfully thinks that his consciousness "mirrors" the world "as it is", but it doesn't, it never did and it never will.

Inception is a pure and plastic example of how we live in the 21. century. We live in a world where there is an infinite amount of media inception of ideas on a daily level. All of it is very well planned and targeted, nothing spontaneous about it. And yet we still egoistically think how our minds "mirror" the world as it is and how independent we are. We cannot except or even know that our minds are a product, that our perceptions are a product. To realize that, one would at least need to "plug off" for a substantial amount of time from this. But that is costly, so nobody does it. In the end our own defense mechanism screw us up, because we refuse to recognize what kind of fools we are.

This is one of the very few blockbuster franchises that I have followed so far. I usually see them fast, or I don't see them at all. And following the Iron Man franchise has "payed off", so far. But this part is different and does feel different than the first, and for some reason it's not so easy to immediately answer why exactly.

The first thing that came to mind is that despite the bigger budget of the second part, the "level" and the time of action is the same if not shorter than in "Iron Man 1". I never thought that I will ever caught myself thinking that there should be more action and less talking in a so-called "summer film".

The real substitute for all the chasing, shooting and blowing up that is a bit missing in this film, is an array of new characters. The constant talking of everyone, especially Tony Stark of course, gives the film a dynamic pace and probably makes those 2 hours go by much quicker. But from my view, the most silent character of all, Vanko, was the most interesting one.

What is also specific for the Iron Man franchise and many of this kind of big films of the new millennium, is the skillful adding of "counter-culture" elements in a very mainstream product. This part left me down here quite a bit. The first trailer for the film had me thinking and hoping that we'll see some kind of a critique of war-profiteering and that it will all lead us to a path of at least some moral dilemmas. But sadly, all of Vanko's motives for vengeance are reduced to some old family rivalry. I guess it is (still?) too much to ask for more from a king-size summer opening film like this.

Just the first thing I noticed here is that the only thing that makes this movie "German", is the German language. Visually it completely matches American films, the cinematography, the cuts, the style and even the content itself, just about anything I can think of, looks "American". If the actors would speak English, it wouldn't have been a "European film", which is known to be different than Hollywood pictures.

This makes me think that the Germans have a peculiar love/hate relationship with American culture and also politics. For instance you cannot miss the sign on the teachers mailbox that says F Bush. I wouldn't call it "anti-Americanism" so quickly, because anti-Americanism is something that in my opinion is more related to cultural, life-style things, than politics. And about cultural, life-style things, there doesn't seem to be a dispute here. They show teenagers doing the same things you see in American movies and the stereotypes also look the same. Jocks, nerds, anarchists, minorities and very boring and annoying teachers.

The cultural things are basically identical, the political, national pride which is kind of quietly present in some, even if critical American films (flags waving) is on the other hand, absent. And you see a little bit of vulgar critique of American politics that you normally don't see in American films. In this film, political idealization of (for instance American) politics is absent, of course, it's Germany, but all the rest, is basically the same. The problem I see, is that politics and culture are not so easy to separate, they are interlinked. That is why I think this German-American relationship or attitude is kind of peculiar.

There is talk about politics here of course, not just autocracy, but a small bit about more present political and economic issues, about capitalism and democracy for instance. So therefore it leads to the crucial theme, is it possible in today's age, when people are so "individualistic", when they don't seem to care about anything, is it possible to bring them together for a common goal and at the same time, is it possible that the goal and the group activity would be in a large dispute with current "civillizational" norms. And the answer, which you can predict, is yes. And this is where the other part of the problem starts.

I think a better film about this sort of issue, would make us think during the start and the end, a lot better about it's topic. Instead we mostly see gang activity, too simplistically portrayed "brainwashed" teenagers and in the end it all leads to the kind of obvious "I told you so" conclusion. The road to that conclusion could and should have a lot more curves and stops than it has here.

I still think that this is a decent picture. It could be considered learning material for high school kids for instance. But sadly it doesn't say much or too little about the complexity of authority, autocracy, group psychology, obedience, politics and more. It seems like it's American style makes it show more and say less. Or to cut the long story short, we see WHAT is going on, and then HOW it's going on, but practically nothing about WHY is it going on. Although there is guessing in the beginning of the film about the rise of Nazism, but those reasons don't apply to the situation and the behavior of the pupils.

The picture should explore better both, the topic and it's characters, but it stops somewhere in the middle or even in the beginning and goes sideways.