Donnie Darko, Hero

I was thinking about talking about this movie I just saw, Donnie Darko, but it'd be pointless. Because that would be my interpretation of it, which could be completely wrong, and assuming I'm right, it would be just babying you. Plus, if I was right, it wouldn't be important or significant, because it's already been told, in the form of Donnie Darko. It'd be like dissecting Aphrodite. All critics suck. Any English teacher who's trying to lure students into getting "the point" is doing something unimportant. It's trying to condition someone to think freely, an oxymoron if there ever was.

Of course, simply by the fact that I'm saying this, I'm trying to make you believe it. I'm not talking to myself, despite my low readership count. So every thing every written is in some slight form, propaganda. That's a generalization; which good propaganda never is. Good propaganda is specific. Good propaganda should also have good fight scenes.

Case in point: Hero. Hero was a good movie, an arthouse Kung Fu movie (second oxymoron). It was also propaganda that followed the Communist system. The message of the movie: Don't resist. The leader knows what is right. War brings unity. "Workers of the world, unite!" Communist expansion all over the world is all right!

I really hope the author believed in what he was saying. Because, really, when we write, that's all we can choose: what kind of propaganda we make. Propaganda for freedom? Propaganda for peace? Propaganda for hatred? Propaganda for apathy? Propaganda for sex?

Complete mental freedom is impossible. We believe something we are told, either by our senses or our souls or by our conspiracy book that says "Don't trust anyone".

The only real standard we can compare propaganda to by is, "Is it beautiful?" Does this encourage people to aspire to something higher, something that makes them more beautiful? Or does it aspire to reality, to following what the government says? Of course, Hero does a bait and switch - he encourages peace and for "warriors to sheathe their swords", but through submission to a war meant to conquer.

But it was all right, cause it had cool action scenes. Especially the one with Sky and Nameless at the beginning of the movie.

Hey, pointless movie quote of the day:

Du musst Caligari werden.

Five dollars for anyone who gets that reference.