Fight the Power: Protest in Film

Here we discover "Horse Thief" and sacred burial involving vultures. Scorsese called it the best film of the decade. Chinese Buddhist film eventually brought "House of Flying Daggers", a mastery of the digital film.

"Repentance" created a sensation, blending Stalin and Hitler into one dictator. It literally changed the world when Gorbachev approved it for release, sparking glasnost and the fall of the Soviet Union.

Narrator Cousins calls "Come and See" the "greatest war film ever made". That is a bold statement, but he may be on to something -- the imagery, the symbolism, and the pure dread... this easily matches or surpasses the great American war films.

In Poland we have "A Short Film About Killing", inspired by "Psycho". Could it be the most disturbing murder ever shown on screen? Allegedly it caused the authorities to revise Poland's death penalty.

The 1980s also brought some mirror images of the American Dream: "Top Gun" on the one hand and "Blue Velvet" on the other. The 1980s as a whole were a low mark for cinema in America, according to Cousins (and I think many many would agree). While countless fun films came out, the critical aspects were often neglected.