2008 Woodie Awards
Movies you should be watching
Movie asks hard questions
Tanya Ludlow
Issue date: 11/7/07 Section: Features
I'm in a Marxist sort of mood.
Maybe it has something to do with this war that seems to have ground the public into a sense of helpless apathy, and pundits and politicians into raving talking heads with lots of opinions and no answers.
Or maybe I'm just annoyed at a certain mutawwa - a religious police force - who is so bent on enforcing the campus tobacco fatwa outside of Harned Hall. At any rate, I'm in the mood for a call to action, or at least a good movie.
Speaking of intolerant ideologies, Judy Davis plays a character in "Children of the Revolution" who is one of those single-minded zealots that inspires both admiration for their dedication and not a small sense of loathing.
In this alternative history flick she plays a member of the Australian Communist Party who is so enthralled by Stalin that she writes him a letter every week. He invites her to the Kremlin. There are shenanigans. What can I say, some women just melt for a luxurious moustache.
She becomes pregnant, and the father of her child is in question (I did say shenanigans in the plural.)
The movie focuses on her son and his rise to power in Australian politics. As the truth of his murky parentage comes to light, he faces a terrifying existential dilemma.
Along the way, the viewer is treated to a remarkable dark comedy co-starring Geoffrey Rush and Sam Neill, and if the fact that F. Murray Abraham plays Stalin doesn't intrigue you, frankly I don't know what will.
The idea of predestination is at the forefront. Are we born the people we are destined to be?
Or do we become who other people think we are?
But really, maybe the most important principle raised in the film, is why do people take themselves so damn seriously?
Maybe it has something to do with this war that seems to have ground the public into a sense of helpless apathy, and pundits and politicians into raving talking heads with lots of opinions and no answers.
Or maybe I'm just annoyed at a certain mutawwa - a religious police force - who is so bent on enforcing the campus tobacco fatwa outside of Harned Hall. At any rate, I'm in the mood for a call to action, or at least a good movie.
Speaking of intolerant ideologies, Judy Davis plays a character in "Children of the Revolution" who is one of those single-minded zealots that inspires both admiration for their dedication and not a small sense of loathing.
In this alternative history flick she plays a member of the Australian Communist Party who is so enthralled by Stalin that she writes him a letter every week. He invites her to the Kremlin. There are shenanigans. What can I say, some women just melt for a luxurious moustache.
She becomes pregnant, and the father of her child is in question (I did say shenanigans in the plural.)
The movie focuses on her son and his rise to power in Australian politics. As the truth of his murky parentage comes to light, he faces a terrifying existential dilemma.
Along the way, the viewer is treated to a remarkable dark comedy co-starring Geoffrey Rush and Sam Neill, and if the fact that F. Murray Abraham plays Stalin doesn't intrigue you, frankly I don't know what will.
The idea of predestination is at the forefront. Are we born the people we are destined to be?
Or do we become who other people think we are?
But really, maybe the most important principle raised in the film, is why do people take themselves so damn seriously?
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