Monday, 6 December 2010

Eating Raoul
(1982)

60%



Lively black comedy about the aftershocks of the sexual revolution in America. It shows the affects of accepting the credo of no emotional repression as a mantra as the inevitable acceptance of criminality as a valid lifestyle choice. In this it is not the apologist for such excess that it seems to be but a conservative riposte to such excess.

Yet the visual explicitness is troubling since it tends to give the impression of valorizing and validating a sexual revolution that only represented freedom for male rapaciousness – with little to offer women. However, the deadpan style cleverly exacerbates the feeling of the emptiness of the characters' lives that is only solaced by sexual promiscuity. A pleasing look at the moral vacuum of Western culture that refuses to look too deeply at its own subject resulting mainly from weak characterization.


Copyright © 2010 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.