Friday, 23 May 2014

Katyn

Rating:
60%
Format:
DVD
Year:
2007
Predominant Genre:
War
Plot:
Examines the slaughter of thousands of officers and citizens in the Katyn forest in 1940.
Themes:
Unknown
Similar Titles:
Unknown
Best Performances:
None

Closed Family Album

Anecdotal story of a family tragedy that obsesses with the concept and practice of the truth, yet never rises above a mere genealogical preoccupation with one’s antecedents.

A story, of course, that needs to be told since the truth honors both the living as well as the dead. But there is no story here that we, who have not suffered as the central characters here have, can take away with us from our own lives to help us reach a greater understanding of this historical event.

The elliptical narrative makes empathy and identification with the characters difficult, so we never really warm to the theme of the Soviet version of historical truth and the moral compromises entailed in a Poland occupied by Russians, Germans then Russians, again - until 1989.

Well-made and handsome-looking, but little more than looking at someone else’s vaguely-interesting family photo album.

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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.