This is the third time I'm going to note about one of these that they're a product of the most blatant cynicism where Hollywood "sponsors" pretend to educate about things they don't believe in and have consigned beyond the sphere of having any relevance.
This is obvious here in a revolution against oppressive authority that can only happen with a video crew tagging along and turning it into film, with spontaneous speeches and reactions because the heroine is being paced through scenes where she can be filmed in them.
Underneath it all of course we're supposed to see real destruction, pain, oppression, but in context of this cartoony world what is it but more unreal and distanced? No contrast escapes the mawkishness; nature is pure, democracy a drab necessity, oppression a blatant evil.
And however much value it purports to place on the power of image, the truth of spontaneity and so on, it ends up doing the opposite, image that has no real power, spontaneity that has been staged, the real thing beyond anyone's grasp and care; it's enough for images to be stickied on a narrative that justifies the means.
In this sense it's disastrous work that closes portals in the imagination, but then again I'm not fussed; teens and preteens will outgrow it like we did the inanities of our time and grow to find value in something that chronicles the hardships of making sense without the contrivance.
If I could nudge them in that direction it would be Harmony Korine, a film like Spring Breakers; a film without pretense of an important message, whose truly radical importance is a balancing it demands of the viewer between the colorful urge to revel and truth of its value.
This is obvious here in a revolution against oppressive authority that can only happen with a video crew tagging along and turning it into film, with spontaneous speeches and reactions because the heroine is being paced through scenes where she can be filmed in them.
Underneath it all of course we're supposed to see real destruction, pain, oppression, but in context of this cartoony world what is it but more unreal and distanced? No contrast escapes the mawkishness; nature is pure, democracy a drab necessity, oppression a blatant evil.
And however much value it purports to place on the power of image, the truth of spontaneity and so on, it ends up doing the opposite, image that has no real power, spontaneity that has been staged, the real thing beyond anyone's grasp and care; it's enough for images to be stickied on a narrative that justifies the means.
In this sense it's disastrous work that closes portals in the imagination, but then again I'm not fussed; teens and preteens will outgrow it like we did the inanities of our time and grow to find value in something that chronicles the hardships of making sense without the contrivance.
If I could nudge them in that direction it would be Harmony Korine, a film like Spring Breakers; a film without pretense of an important message, whose truly radical importance is a balancing it demands of the viewer between the colorful urge to revel and truth of its value.