Sunday 30 October 2016

Turistas

(2006)

RATING:40%
FORMAT:DVD

[Paradise Lost]

CUIDADO!

Despite spending time revealing Brazilian culture at its best, this still plays the White supremacist trope that foreign countries are dangerous for Whites simply because of the dark skins of the natives. Believing that foreign people and their resources are to be both exploited and mocked, we now see the naked fear behind such a White polity.

It is easy to understand why the natives here detest White tourists because of the quintessential White supremacism of the latter. But these issues are never fully explored dramatically in favor of gore, cheap thrills & a sense that the mestizo of Brazil is finally getting its revenge on the palefaces for the generic exploitation of the Third World for the sole benefit of the First.

There is no real sense of terror, suspense or even credibility here. As usual, the mixed bag of Westernized Whites represent political innocence abroad as if they can do little wrong - even in their self-admitted purposelessness. This creates a curious lack of empathy between the audience and the central characters; almost making us side with the evil goings-on perpetrated against them.

Hitchcock knew that the greatest horror comes from the familiar seen differently, rather than simply relying on the rather obvious fear-of-the-unknown, as here. He also knew that you have to establish the characters, psychologically, as well as their relationship to each other (& themselves) before an audience could ever care about them.

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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.