| RATING: | 60% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
Post-Colonial Melancholia
The usual White depression about their declining position in the world - expressed as a cultureless lack of a personal identity as well as a lack of anything upon which to base such an identity.
Whites are so consumed with materialism and the fact that objects provide little personal satisfaction, that their collective unease becomes something of a whining bore.
In each of the three playlets presented here, the character’s lack of personal direction caused by a conformity to a culture that, itself, has no direction, is the basic theme. Moreover, White democratic politicians are shown as so untrusted by their electorates that it is felt they should be publicly humiliated so that those same voters can try to evade the humiliation of having voted for them in the first place.
The satire here fails because the insistence on using telegraphese in conversations, to demonstrate the speaker’s lack of depth, grates - and soon comes across as a lack of writing ability. There is also the inevitable problem that the creators conflate the Political with the Personal - as much as their character creations do.
At no point are genuine human emotions expressed that would enable the audience to understand why the world depicted here is presented as something undesirable. (Political satire is not a substitute for Personal satire when exploring Personal relationships.)
The lovelessness expressed, but never explored, makes this as talentless and as mediocre as its protagonists - for there are no antagonists. Al-Qaeda is the most recent and the most valid critique of White culture presently available - yet this self-absorbed drama evades external reality and even implies that the criticized will always absorb (&, thereby, neutralize) internal criticism.
Inevitably, stories made by empty people about their own emptiness offer us no-one to root for - as well as no means of escape to an alternative manner of living that is more fulfilling. The political purpose here is, thus, for Whites to admit they are empty while simultaneously trying to inure themselves to that very fact because of their implication that there is no viable alternative.
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