This Cold War era love story by Pawel Pawlikowski is loosely based on his parents' relationship that in real life spanned the entire timeline of Cold War from beginning to end. It is evident by the product that he has put his heart and soul into this picture.
The movie itself is in black and white in its native Polish language with English subtitles. But that alone does not diminish the raw emotion of this work of art. The relationship at the heart of this film is between the music director of a folklore group and one of its performers.
There are plenty of tactical silences in this movie, which accentuate the dialogue and its characters ability to act without saying a word. It also is in contrast with the musical folklore group that the movie begins with. Its theme runs counter to the traditional Hollywood love stories and stays true to its Eastern European storytelling roots. WARNING: Beyond this point, you will read spoilers.
The movie begins several years after World War II, with the music director Wiktor (played by Tomasz Kot) and his subordinates traveling through Poland in search of its most talented performers in order to assemble a Polish Folklore Group. He comes across Zula (played by Joanna Kulig) who wows him with her... assets despite not having the most pure voice. He lets her into the folk group and they begin their torrid affair off stage.
As time moves on, the political forces in charge force Wiktor and the Folk Group's management to add to its performances a more Communist Promotional angle, which angers Wiktor and slowly leads him to consider defecting to the West. As in the 1950s Berlin still had no wall, while on tour Wiktor convinces Zula to escape across the line of demarcation in Berlin after their scheduled performance. At the last minute, Zula decides to stay, feeling that she doesn't have the stomach nor the talent to make it in the West, while Wiktor walks across the line and eventually settles in Paris.
Both characters seemingly move on, but on a chance encounter a few years later they are magnetically drawn to each other again and the passion displayed by both actors here is undeniable mastery in performance. They attempt to live together in Paris, but ultimately cannot. Jealousy, suspicion, and resentment build up to a boiling point and Zula runs back to Poland. Wiktor attempts to follow her back, but is arrested on suspicion of espionage.
They meet again in Poland, with Zula now having another husband and children. Yet the very same magnetism they have for each other is still strong as ever. They get back together for one final rendezvous and perform the very act that the Communist State denies them - a church wedding. It is not a formal wedding - the church is a crumbling ruins, there is no priest, and the only thing that makes this a proper wedding are the candles and their vows.
A good measure of a dramatic tour de force performance for me is whether or not a story lines draws me in and makes me care about the characters enough so that for that hour and a half (or more) I vicariously live through their experiences. In this case, the movie succeeded. I give this movie 4.5 out of 5 stars. It really shows that classic cinema is alive and well.
P.S. If you love this genre of Cold War era love stories, there is a 1988 movie that stars Daniel Day Lewis, Juliette Binoche and Lena Olin that is excellent - "Unbearable Lightness of Being"
Showing posts with label cold war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cold war. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Saturday, January 28, 2012
The Fall (Part II) - Military Race against whom???
In last week's post we began looking at the fall of the Socialist empire and the major factors that forced its demise. In Part I, we covered the Patriot Act, SOPA and NDAA, as well as how each parallels the government control principles of a Police state. While today's news were all about the Internet blackout and the SOPA/PIPA backlash from the public, today's post will focus on The Fall Part II that will cover our country's out of control military spending.
When the economy imploded in the Soviet Union, one of the major factors which led the demise was the consistent foolish desire by the Socialist world leader to "Keep Up with Uncle Sam" in terms of military might. The CIA saw an opportunity in this desire and consistently fed it, in order to drive their ideological opponent out of business. To compound the problem, Soviet Union's incursion into Afghanistan lasted for over nine years and bled the once formidable Socialist adversary completely dry. What the Politburo discovered, when it was way too late to stop the collapse, is that you cannot expect to cover the increasing costs of military spending without growing the country's gross domestic product. But the money to pay for all of this had to come from somewhere... and it did. It came at the cost of a declining living standards of Soviet citizens, as the government fleeced its population of their earnings in order to pay for the military indulgences.
Which all brings us to today, where the United States has no formidable military rival in the world and still outspends the closest military power eleven times over. Let me repeat that, the United States of America spends eleven times more than the second highest military spender in the world. Last year, our country spent over seven hundred billion ($700B) on military during one of the worst ongoing recessions in the country's history. Incidentally, we also had the largest increase in military spending than anyone else in the world. And while our national economy isn't growing, our military spending continues to increase.
To be fair, some of the spending increases are attributed to ongoing operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Nobody will contest that the incursion into Afghanistan after 9/11/2001 was justified as retribution against terrorist-sponsoring Taliban nation. Neither will there be issues justifying the incursion into Iraq in March of 2003 to destroy a terrorist-harboring regime. However, the length of stay in these regions has been extensive. Nevertheless, the public has yet to question our government's intentions when it came to military spending correlation to our economy.
The public may already know that active military operations cost money. The Army employs over 1,100,000 Americans in active and reserve military personnel directly within the branch. You need to pay for arming, clothing, feeding and transporting military personnel. Intelligence, logistics, armored vehicles and other related equipment costs a lot of money - and you can't get it on sale at Walmart. The taxpayers pay the full price and sometimes an inflated price due to the existence of only one supplier in many cases. What most people do not realize is how far-reaching the war machine is into our economy. Manufacture of small arms, tanks, fighter jets, reconnaissance planes, helicopters, drones, refueling vehicles, artillery, optics, satellites and more are all taken care of by private companies. The engineering and medical staff required in the field are a part of the military, but the equipment they require are also supplied and maintained by privately held companies.
Part of the arsenal in our military is the highly mobile Navy that can deliver a military presence anywhere in the world. All of its vessels are enormously expensive to build and maintain, as well as instruct personnel on how to operate them. In the disclosed vast arsenal of our Navy there are 12 Aircraft Carriers, 29 Amphibious Vessels, 109 Surface Vessels and 71 Submarines. To keep this fleet afloat year in and year out costs the American Taxpayer a fortune.
The United States also maintains an incredibly large military presence at home and overseas. We have Army, Navy and Air Force bases all over the world in every continent except for Antarctica. We have bases in Afghanistan, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cuba, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Greenland, Guam, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Netherlands, Portugal, Qatar, Singapore, South Korea, Spain and Turkey. And these are the installations that the United States has made public - it doesn't account for others that are utilized by various intelligence services. While not as expensive as an active military operation, the same exact costs apply to personnel and equipment. Furthermore, the majority of installations in Europe serve no real purpose, as they are Cold War relics that survived our transition from the days of the arms race, where we successfully pushed the Soviet Union to expend its military to the breaking point.
In the end, the United States military machine is very costly to the American taxpayer. In addition, the war machines and bases the United States maintains around the world are a bleeding wound to the American taxpayer. Furthermore, taxpayer funds are also spent heavily on the wide array of private companies that supply the United States military. As a result, the indirect and direct military expenses are beyond reason. Furthermore, they provide a reduction in unemployment figures as more people are employed directly and indirectly through the military each year - this allows the government to mask true unemployment figures. Moreover, they provide related private sector economic growth which is fueled by government spending and represents false growth and false hope in our economy.
Lastly, and to my initial point, against whom are we conducting this arms race? We no longer have a Soviet Union to strangle with our spending. On the contrary, we are suffocating ourselves with every additional budget increase that is earmarked for the military. Our Cold War rival was pushed to the brink with the arms race we engineered. Let's not fall victim to our own strategy.
When the economy imploded in the Soviet Union, one of the major factors which led the demise was the consistent foolish desire by the Socialist world leader to "Keep Up with Uncle Sam" in terms of military might. The CIA saw an opportunity in this desire and consistently fed it, in order to drive their ideological opponent out of business. To compound the problem, Soviet Union's incursion into Afghanistan lasted for over nine years and bled the once formidable Socialist adversary completely dry. What the Politburo discovered, when it was way too late to stop the collapse, is that you cannot expect to cover the increasing costs of military spending without growing the country's gross domestic product. But the money to pay for all of this had to come from somewhere... and it did. It came at the cost of a declining living standards of Soviet citizens, as the government fleeced its population of their earnings in order to pay for the military indulgences.
Which all brings us to today, where the United States has no formidable military rival in the world and still outspends the closest military power eleven times over. Let me repeat that, the United States of America spends eleven times more than the second highest military spender in the world. Last year, our country spent over seven hundred billion ($700B) on military during one of the worst ongoing recessions in the country's history. Incidentally, we also had the largest increase in military spending than anyone else in the world. And while our national economy isn't growing, our military spending continues to increase.
To be fair, some of the spending increases are attributed to ongoing operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Nobody will contest that the incursion into Afghanistan after 9/11/2001 was justified as retribution against terrorist-sponsoring Taliban nation. Neither will there be issues justifying the incursion into Iraq in March of 2003 to destroy a terrorist-harboring regime. However, the length of stay in these regions has been extensive. Nevertheless, the public has yet to question our government's intentions when it came to military spending correlation to our economy.
The public may already know that active military operations cost money. The Army employs over 1,100,000 Americans in active and reserve military personnel directly within the branch. You need to pay for arming, clothing, feeding and transporting military personnel. Intelligence, logistics, armored vehicles and other related equipment costs a lot of money - and you can't get it on sale at Walmart. The taxpayers pay the full price and sometimes an inflated price due to the existence of only one supplier in many cases. What most people do not realize is how far-reaching the war machine is into our economy. Manufacture of small arms, tanks, fighter jets, reconnaissance planes, helicopters, drones, refueling vehicles, artillery, optics, satellites and more are all taken care of by private companies. The engineering and medical staff required in the field are a part of the military, but the equipment they require are also supplied and maintained by privately held companies.
Part of the arsenal in our military is the highly mobile Navy that can deliver a military presence anywhere in the world. All of its vessels are enormously expensive to build and maintain, as well as instruct personnel on how to operate them. In the disclosed vast arsenal of our Navy there are 12 Aircraft Carriers, 29 Amphibious Vessels, 109 Surface Vessels and 71 Submarines. To keep this fleet afloat year in and year out costs the American Taxpayer a fortune.
The United States Air Force provides incredible first strike capability in the American arsenal. In addition, it can prevent the need for ground operations and subsequently avoid American casualties. In its services are 5,573 aircraft, including 2,132 fighters. It employs more than 550,000 Americans directly, has 32 satellites and 450 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. However, the wealth of equipment we have is redundant with a significant part of existing projects for future aircraft unnecessary and wasteful. The Comanche helicopter and F-22 Raptor fighter were incredibly expensive and unnecessary projects that cost the taxpayers a lot of money, cancelled due to high cost of the programs and in the end were never needed on the field of battle.
The United States also maintains an incredibly large military presence at home and overseas. We have Army, Navy and Air Force bases all over the world in every continent except for Antarctica. We have bases in Afghanistan, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cuba, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Greenland, Guam, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Netherlands, Portugal, Qatar, Singapore, South Korea, Spain and Turkey. And these are the installations that the United States has made public - it doesn't account for others that are utilized by various intelligence services. While not as expensive as an active military operation, the same exact costs apply to personnel and equipment. Furthermore, the majority of installations in Europe serve no real purpose, as they are Cold War relics that survived our transition from the days of the arms race, where we successfully pushed the Soviet Union to expend its military to the breaking point.
In the end, the United States military machine is very costly to the American taxpayer. In addition, the war machines and bases the United States maintains around the world are a bleeding wound to the American taxpayer. Furthermore, taxpayer funds are also spent heavily on the wide array of private companies that supply the United States military. As a result, the indirect and direct military expenses are beyond reason. Furthermore, they provide a reduction in unemployment figures as more people are employed directly and indirectly through the military each year - this allows the government to mask true unemployment figures. Moreover, they provide related private sector economic growth which is fueled by government spending and represents false growth and false hope in our economy.
Lastly, and to my initial point, against whom are we conducting this arms race? We no longer have a Soviet Union to strangle with our spending. On the contrary, we are suffocating ourselves with every additional budget increase that is earmarked for the military. Our Cold War rival was pushed to the brink with the arms race we engineered. Let's not fall victim to our own strategy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)