Hypersensitive

Czech Dream {Vít Klusák/Filip Remunda, 2004}



Czech Dream certainly calls into question a few ideas that are tough to swallow, but do they chew it up for you the right way? Of course there is the obvious examination of our susceptibility to corporate marketing, but more interestingly, the film corners itself into a whirl of controversy by causing us to ask whether a hoax of this size can really be considered an act of artistic merit. At the film's conclusion, when the facade is dropped and the masses who gather learn that they've been fooled, Remunda and Klusak (who have been present for the entire process as the face of this fabricated market,) take the heat well as they explain their intentions to this reasonably upset crowd. However, seeing those who have gone out of their way in search of lower prices reads to me as an unfair exploitation of the desperation inherent in a tattered economic system. I'm one for seeing capitalism bare ass with its pants around its knees, but if you were to trick my grandmother into waddling across a field on legs riddled with rheumatoid arthritis, we'd have a few words.

To me, it appears that the pair of filmmaker's are assigning a grounded vendetta against capitalism on top of what most would consider a rather harmless product of the capitalist system. Hypermarkets dont seem villainous enough for this argument. In fact, they're actually painted here as a relatively positive symbol of progress in an economically crippled and confused country as the Czech Republic.

However, shedding light on the advertising groups who put together these psychologically attractive marketing packages works much better for the pair's thesis. The segments they have of their arguments with the ad executives are priceless, portraying them as a mesh of the utopian idealist, the sleek corporate gear, and the heady, presumptuous "artiste." They do a wonderful job of fooling those involved in commercial exposure and distribution into thinking they are showcasing their talents, while in reality they are really contributing to damaging their own image as a reputable enterprise.

Edward Scissorhands

Edward Scissorhands {Tim Burton, 1990}



Its really tragic that Tim Burton's inner child as a method of cinematic articulation has had the adverse effect of prefacing a sort of "eyeliner manifesto." For a whole generation of delusional, upper to middle class junior high mall-rats, this film is a fashion staple for those teens bent on externalizing their angst with as much leather as possible. Tim Burton seems to have intended a far more personal allegory dealing with alienation and abandonment, but instead his childhood drawings from which the basis of the film was derived, have been robbed of their originality by the greedy tentacles of gothic cult mania. If removed from its post-premiere ripple effect, however, Burton's magical vision stands as pruned and flawless as one of the eponymous Eddie's garden sculpture's.

The film is a treat for those who are used to sorting a difficult subtext. Its wonderfully straightforward, without relinquishing any of the depth in its social commentary. It's like Burton sits you down in the back yard, in a prim yellow lawn chair, puts you at ease with a shoulder touch of quirky simplicity, and then proceeds to dexterously sheer out a new hairdo without you ever having noticed a thing. Tim Burton makes his film so easy to read that exploring the different platitudes of the story itself seems irrelevant. This is a movie you should just see, as stupid as that sounds, because you'll get it better than if I stammer in this review to summarize this efficient, autonomous piece of film.

Spin

Spin {Brian Springer, 1995}



Calculated Truth

For me, prescience and poignancy are more valuable than urgency or agenda in any work that attempts to properly canvas our country's modern politics. It is especially enjoyable to witness how a piece like Brian Springer's 1995 Documentary Spin homogenizes a sensitivity to bias with an obvious call to action. The uncanny scrutiny provided by Springer's use of the unique informational source of unedited (or "unspun") satellite feeds from major news networks lends his content a level of validity that comes with any form of dedication to research like the kind he exhibits here.

Along with a fantastic soundscape (ripe with the creepy ambient buzzing pops and cavernous space rattle that could make any piece ominous) and a carefully narrated text that uses his title word Spin as a brilliant foundation for both a literal and subtextual discussion of media content, Springer most eloquently employs motivated edits in a way separate from how our favorite blood-boiling, polarized documentarians tend to use their censor scissors to shepherd an audience into their own opinion corral.

Unlike the favoritism and partiality (insert sigh here) that Michael Moore and Alex Jones have a penchant for, Springer strings only a subtle hint of a leftist approach in his composition. Unfortunately inherent in any filtering (or "spin") of media is an air of zeitgeist that most viewers dont appreciate. Instead, here, Springer simply rattles out a thesis that asks "what are we really missing" without asking it with a raised eyebrow.