Saturday 7 June 2014

Johnny Mad Dog

Rating:
80%
Format:
DVD
Year:
2008
Predominant Genre:
War
Plot:
Child soldiers fight an unknown war in an unknown country.
Themes:
Personal change
Self-expression
Compassion
Totalitarianism
Similar Titles:
Unknown
Best Performances:
All

Movie that sums up the horrors of child soldiering in Africa combined with excellent performances from a young cast. They sum up perfectly the trauma suffered by children caught up in such events through the blankness of their expressions and their robotically murderous exploits.

However, there is no explanation as to why the events we witness are happening; making the whole affair rather a White look at people who should really have told their own story.

After centuries of Whites not respecting tribal boundaries with White-created national ones, it is hardly surprising that such murderous ethnic conflict should occur at all. Here, Blacks behave like the Whites who went before them in using force to achieve any and all ends. Part of the decolonization process requires that traditional ethnic boundaries be re-established in conflict with the demands of nation states created in a non-organic fashion. But, given the White perspective shown here, none of that understanding is even implied. Instead, we get an anti-child soldier film that contains little real understanding of its own themes, despite the harrowing and compelling nature of its content.

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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.