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jensbob
Reviews
El hoyo (2019)
A commentary on society, and more
Spoilers ahead
So, there are two concepts to this movie that are compelling to me. First, there's the observation and commentary of society as we've constructed it and how we may address it's flaws. Secondly it's the journey of the protagonist Goreng and how he finds his place in the society he has been inserted into.
While Goreng's personal journey is interesting and could be written about at length, I feel the social commentary is the more obvious purpose of the movie so I'll talk mostly about that.
As it is, it is pretty blatant, but powerful nonetheless. In the "tower" there's a system where some, a few sit at the top of the hierarchy and they can not only indulge freely in the wealth of the world as it is, they can and do make life worse for those below them just because of their level in the hierarchy. Those below have no power to influence those above, so they just despise them and hope for a better position. Getting to a better or worse position is apparently random.
This is all very reflexive of the real world. Some have, through luck of the draw ended up in elevated positions where they can indulge their every desire and treat everyone else with either disinterest or disdain. Those not so fortunate can do very little to change this.
In the tower, there are enough resources that everyone could have what they need and not starve. But through the greed of those at the top, nowhere close to everyone gets their share of the food. We learn that the tower has 333 levels, and we also learn that at level 132 there's no food left and already far above that level there are only scraps left. Those at the top levels not only eat excessively, but waste food flippantly, with no regard for those who could have survived if they hadn't.
In our world, not only are there enough resources, there are more than enough, but a tiny number at the top, less than 1% of humanity owns most of the wealth and are working to increase their share; they utilize this wealth ineffectively and wastefully on vanity projects, or simply hoard it, even with full knowledge that they could instead help people.
There is a solution for the issue of the tower; if everyone ate just their fill, there would be enough for everyone. But how could this possibly happen? We see some attempts at this, from the notion Goreng has in the beginning that simply encouraging everyone to ration their food, but this fails due to people not only accepting their place in the hierarchy, but protecting it in a fashion; those at a lower level know they are beneath those above them, but at least they're above those further below and thus it could have been worse, so they're going to play along. At the levels where no one is effectively above anyone since no food ever gets there the people have no power to influence anything. Goreng and his partner decides to enforce equality, but it leads to more violence and brutality. The only way for everyone to be able to survive is if everyone did the right thing for each other, and took only what they actually need from the common wealth; if everyone came to realize that through acting in the way that is most beneficial to everyone else instead of for oneself it ultimately leads to salvation for everyone.
In reality the problem is also potentially solvable; if wealth was distributed fairly, no one would struggle or starve, yet we fail to make this happen. We see attempts from individuals or groups to encourage people to change but this fails due to people clinging to their place in the hierarchy: yes, they're not at the top, but they're also not at the bottom, just like in the tower, and like there, the people so destitute they risk not being able to sustain themselves they have no power to change anything. In reality there has been attempts to force people to share equally, using violence if necessary, but they all end in violence and oppression. It seems that just like in the tower, what would need to happen in real life is for people to mentally evolve to where they, without coercion of any kind chooses to not enriching themselves, but instead shares all resources and wealth. The question is, how can humanity "evolve" in this way?
To put labels on the concepts, the state the tower is in at the beginning of the movie, and indeed where reality is, is unrestrained capitalism. When our protagonist tries to coerce altruism by force that represents socialism; successfully distributing the resources fairly, but at the cost of violence and limitation of people's liberty and with the unresolved question of who get's to set the rules and who enforces them. The third state is communism as described by Marx and Engels, a society where people have come to understand that communal ownership of all resources and the fair sharing of them is the only system able to create equality for all without forming an elite with undue power and wealth.
While none of this is particularly novel or shocking, what the movie does manage to do well is to capture how even the most oppressive and unfair of systems are enabled and perpetuated by the people who are the victims of it. We all have a stronge urge to feel that we're not at the bottom. We can easily accept that we'll likely never be at the top of the hierarchy we're part of, we dread being at the bottom. As long as we have people we perceive as below us we can put up with almost anything, even when our actions perpetuate the system we're the victims of. The movie also displays our tendency to rationalize our own inaction or outright misbehavior by convincing ourselves that everyone else will do the same, so our doing something different will make no difference and will only result in ourselves ending up in trouble or having a worse outcome. The movie shows these traits in their ugliest form and how the system works because of them and lets us infer that this is the same in real life. Those seeking power and wealth knows this very well and relies on these traits for building systems of dominance unopposed.
Genesis Impact (2020)
Insults your intellect and bores you to death
Proponents of "intelligent design", or more specifically creationists are having an increasingly worse time, with science being incremental our understanding of the world around us is ever increasing and the more we learn, the smaller are the gaps in which they can claim their god exists. Because make no mistake, creationists argue purely out of a god of the gaps perspective, that is, since there obviously are no positive evidence for their position they have to rely on the cases where science has yet to full explain a phenomenon and claim this lack of knowledge is proof of divine activity. At a time in history where mankind lacked understanding of most natural processes this was a rewarding strategy since people dislike not knowing how things work and happily accepted the suggestion of god. Nowadays, with these "gaps" being very rare, people are less inclined to ask for magical answers.
This has forced creationists to reinforce their arguments with deception, deflection and outright lies, and all of these are on full display in this movie.
The concept of the movie is that a young female student is visiting a museum of natural science for some reason, and there she encounters the "docent" and engages in a discussion with him in front of a live audience. The discussion revolves mostly around the recent evolutionary steps on the path of mankinds evolution. The problems arise early on:
First of all, the "Docent" plays his role very poorly in a way that makes it obvious that he really isn't trying to argue the case of natural sciences in general or evolution specifically. When he explains things he does so in ways that are clearly designed to fit into the creationist's narrative with just a few pointers, conveniently provided by the student.
Meanwhile the student provides all of the favorit creationist talking points in a performance that's more than anything comical. It's all very tedious, even though it's obvious that the filmmakers are trying to make it dramatic.
The main issue is of course that all of the talking points (I refuse to call them arguments) are disingenuous and dishonest. Some examples that spring to mind:
* Listing a large number of examples of what would be described as transitional species she points out that there are no fossils found from transitional species in between those listed.
* Trying to claim that the fossil bones of a hominid found among tools and the bones of prey animals are actually not an example of a hominid, but rather bones of monkeys that were killed and eaten by modern humans living at the site. The problem is of course that the modern human settlement found at the site is from the early iron age, while the hominid fossils were tens of thousands of years old.
* In another case she claims something similar since there was a homo sapiens site found nearby the hominid fossils which would make it difficult to determine which bones belonged to which species. In reality the two sites are an 8 hour drive apart.
* Claiming radiometric dating is inaccurate because of the fact that there exists cases where the results were off, or where mixed minerals would make it difficult to differentiate between newly formed rock from a volcanic eruption and older rock, all while ignoring the countless examples of radiometric dating working perfectly in controlled settings.
Another favorite of these people is to dig out extremely outdated scientific texts and then disprove that. Or to use early 20th century newspaper illustrations as an example of what science at that point claimed.
I could fill pages after pages with this, but the point is, the movie is dishonest propaganda that wants you to believe in outrageously silly and implausible things and to do so it lies, deflects, avoids inconvenient facts and so on. No one with a slight bit of analytical capacity should fall for this, in fact you should be upset that they believe you would. The movie is filled with the best arguments the creationists has at this point and still a person of average education and faculties would be able to disprove every single one of them in less than an hour of research.
Had it only been about personal faith I wouldn't have an issue with this and similar movies; sure, they're horrible as movies, but at least it doesn't impact someone innocent. The issue is however that the creationists are trying to get school districts to remove or limit the teaching of actual science such as evolutionary biology and to instead preach their lies. To teach children things that are so removed from reality is nothing but evil and needs to be stopped by any means, which includes trying to get people who may be in danger of falling for such rhetoric not to watch this.
Outlast (2023)
Potential for a decent show destroyed by greed
So, this show was supposed to be about the challenge of surviving in the Alaskan wilderness at the break of winter. Two of the contestants, with the assistance of a third member of their team decided that this wasn't at all how the game was supposed to play out, instead resorting to endangering the lives of other contestants by stealing critical survival gear and in the end just parking in someone else's camp ready to steal and or destroy it once he left, while the other member of the dishonest duo destroyed his equipment elsewhere. Sad story short, the most capable survivor was driven away by thieves exploiting the rules that apparently allowed them to take his things in front of him, but not for him to defend himself against this. The show's director hid the failure of the premise behind saying there's no specific rule against what they were doing, except of course, as a victim points out, there exists laws in America that prohibits stealing.
The only redemption is when the dishonesty of the cheating team makes them distrust eachother and the team implodes and the two main culprits gets a taste of their own medicine, to watch them gripe over having been betrayed is pretty sweed.
The fact that the production team didn't realize this chain of events made the competition into something that wasn't at all about survival and instead about displaying the very worst of human beings is shocking and I sincerely hope there will never be another season of this crap. Watch it if you feel to happy and want to be really frustrated and to lose faith in humanity.
Retrograde (2022)
Deeply painful on a personal level
My relationship to Afghanistan and the US engagement there is a deeply foundational one for me as a person. I graduated West Point right before 9/11 and overnight reality went from looking at a career where some shorter deployments might have happened to one where warzones would become a major part of my life.
What's most painful when thinking about Afghanistan, and something this movie illustrates very clearly is how badly we let so many people down due to how we left. Closest to hear are all the soldiers, interpreters, informants, and others who directly assisted us. I can't go into details, but I ended up in a position where, much like the Green Berets in the movie I was deeply involved in the efforts to prepare the Afghans to be able to defend themselves and many of the men I interacted with became personal friends, most of whom I don't know what happened to, and in the cases I do know, I would rather not. Not because almost all of them are dead, but because most of them died badly.
But there's also others. There are the US and Coalition soldiers who died, all the way from men under my command, to close personal friends all the way back to Academy. One of my best friends lost both his legs, one eye and is almost deaf, a you female lieutenant who I mentored over a long time spends the rest of her life in a wheelchair after her back was broken. And then there are all those who never came home.
Finally it's the rest of the Afghan people, and I'm thinking specifically of the women. I recall the almost disbelieving joy of so many young women when we first drove the Talibans away and I watched over the years how girls who had earlier at best only to hope they were married off to a man that wasn't to unkind to where they could now dream of becoming teachers, doctors, writers and so on. And now, predictably, it's all being reversed at express speed, where women can now no longer attend any school after elementary school.
Of course there's also the billions of dollars spent. For what? When Biden gave his speech announcing the withdrawal he made it sound like getting Bin Ladin was what we came for. That's insulting to pretty much the entire effort. To me, all the people I mentioned above where betrayed. They made sacrifices, often the ultimate one, for nothing.
This movie is a monument over this betrayal and the waste. It's beautiful photography and score emphasizes the story of increasing desperation and hopelessness, where at the point the movie begins, 8 months before the withdrawal, there is hope, and the young general protagonist is confident, and he was probably right to be. At that point, the war effort had lead to a situation where the Afghan forces could be effective with the support of just a few thousand lightly equipped US forces supporting them and no one in their right mind could have expected that achievement would be thrown away so flippantly. The moment the withdrawal becomes a fact you see the commander and the men shrinking back with the realization that it was all over.
The movie impresses with how close it has been able to take the viewers to the events, and capturing the feel of events to a point where it becomes difficult to watch because of the emotions it awakens. I can't recommend enough that everyone watches this.
Summer of 84 (2018)
Happily surprised
Never heard of the film before finding it on Netflix, getting intrigued and watching and it was a pleasant surprise. Even though I'm a bit younger than the main characters, It felt right at target as to the eighties feel. The story is a kinda cookie-cutter coming of age thing, but at least to me it was pleasant enough. The serial killer theme adds something unique to the film, and where they take it in the end makes it not end at all in the way I was expecting or how films like this tend to go.
*****Spoilers below*****
Yes, there where some minor annoyances, the main one was how at the end where they serial killer was revealed but not caught how no one was even a little worried that he might want vengeance. How was the police not watching the main character's house? How did the killer get into the house to hide with no one noticing?
I was also kinda annoyed at the parents reaction to the kid's investigation and findings, but I guess there are parents who treat their kids that way. Personally, My kids are some of my closest relatives in the world and like any family member or close friend they deserve my attention and me trusting them, at least if they haven't given me a reason not to. No matter how unlikely it may seem, if someone in my family tells me about something as serious as this it would be extremely unfair and rude of me to assume they made it all up.
These things asside, it was an enjoyable film that I'd recommend anyone to watch.