Tag Archive: Adolf Hitler


COME AND SEE THE EVIL THAT MEN DO

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January 17, 2012

COME AND SEE directed by Elem Klimov  (Soviet Union, 1985)

The original title of this movie was Kill Hitler  which doesn’t win points for subtlety but makes the director’s point of view crystal clear.

By the end our young hero shoots at a framed picture of the Führer and each shot coincides with a newsreel sequence played backwards. History is wound back to before the Hitler’s birth; the dream being that Nazism would not have existed without his leadership.

Hitler is the personification of evil yet the fact that there were so many willing accomplices to the fascist atrocities reveals the sad truth that human wickedness never begins or ends with just one man.

Scenes in the movie of German soldiers laughing and joking as they carry out unspeakable acts highlights the depths of depravity human beings are capable of.  You only have to see the recent footage of American soldiers pissing on the bodies of Iraqi corpses to realise that war legitimizes this descent into barbarism. Continue reading →

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BACKTRACKING # 16 – HEAVEN 17

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May 20, 2011

Part of an irregular series of bite-sized posts about 7″ singles I own – shameless nostalgia from the days of vinyl. (Search ‘Backtracking’ to collect the set!)

Heaven 17 – (We don’t need this) Fascist Groove Thang b/w The Decline of the West (Virgin Records, 1981) 

“Have you heard it on the news about this fascist groove thang – evil men with racist views spreading all across this land”

Heaven 17 - we mean it maaaaaan!

History has a nasty habit of repeating itself. Apologists for fascism and genocide may be asserting the right to free speech but their comments need to be vilified in the strongest possible terms.

Danish film director Lars  (“I am a Nazi”) Von Trier claims he was only joking during the press conference at Cannes Film Festival when he said that he sympathises with Adolf Hitler.

He admits that Hitler “did some wrong things” and was “not a good guy”; banalities that must go down as the sickest and most misguided understatements of the year.

What Von Trier was really doing was to seek some cheap publicity to grab the headlines; he has achieved this but probably not in the way he envisaged. Who knows what was going through his head to make such crass remarks.

Some folks have come to his defence and argue that Jews should lighten up, but these were not comments against one race but against the human race.

I therefore dedicate today’s ‘Backtrack’ to Von Trier and would draw his attention to the lines “Hitler proves that funky stuff is not for you and me girl”. Continue reading →

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WHEN BENITO MET ADOLF

Filed under: Gender, Italy, Movies, Politics — Leave a comment
April 19, 2011

Una Giornata Particolare (A Special Day ) directed by Ettore Scola (1977).

This beautiful film is set in Rome on May 8, 1939, the day  Mussolini first met Hitler.

It opens with extended documentary footage of this infamous occasion. The adoring crowds  waving swastika flags is a sobering reminder of the mass support these despicable leaders commanded.

Sophia Loren plays Antonietta who is left alone in her tenement flat when her fascist husband and tribe of six children leave to attend the celebratory rally.

While cleaning,  the family’s pet minor bird escapes through the window and lands on the stairwell near the window of the flat directly opposite.  This is next to the home of Gabriele  (Marcello Mastroianni). In retrieving the bird the two strike up a friendship through a mutual attraction and  recognition of their lonely lives.

The symbolism of the bird briefly escaping its cage soon becomes apparent. Continue reading →

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