This critique is exciting and incisive at points such as, “Perfidia is precisely the dream of a Woman as all, of a woman who is phallus.”However I object to the fight for illegal immigrants to escape incarceration as pro- Trumpian. You state,“As for One Battle After Another, to focus on the violent help to illegal immigrants is also problematic: it helps big capital (providing cheap labor and lowering the wages of American workers) and simultaneously raises support for Trumpian populists.” This is actually the opposite goal of the fascist agenda. In actuality, the administration kidnaps marginalized Latinos to create slave labor in ICE prisons.
But “One Battle After Another” doesn’t actually involve the Trump agenda, since the film contains a parody of the racist Billionaires.
The big problem with One Battle After Another (OBAA) is that it doesn’t stand for anything. None of the characters transcend what they represent on the surface. Thus, DiCaprio is an imbecilic revolutionary, and Penn is an imbecilic tool of oppression. The Christmas Adventurers are the blockheaded White elite. There is no subtext to these caricatures—no afterthought. OBAA is therefore reduced to the level of a Road Runner cartoon, with DiCaprio as the Road Runner and Penn as Wile E. Coyote. These cardboard cutouts have no third dimension.
One could generously read the film as an allegory for rebuilding a fractured family unit, but anchoring that idea to one of the most important and momentous periods in U.S. history seems awkward at best. And insensitive, when deployed purely for entertainment. Which is what OBAA ultimately is.
I would propose another film for comparison: Who’ll Stop the Rain (Karel Reisz, 1978), based on Robert Stone’s terrific novel Dog Soldiers. Here, the disillusioned, desperate journalist-narrator stands in for middle-class America confronted with imperial graft. He plays into it in an act of self-preservation. His wife embodies intellectual America, retreating into drugs and apathy to cope with ’60s violence. But the protagonist (Nick Nolte) serves as the conscience: an autodidact Merchant Marine who fights one last battle to even the scales. A veteran whose Hippy idealism was shattered by the Vietnam experience, he becomes a bridge between America’s institutionalized violence and its need for healing. In this way, Who’ll Stop the Rain achieves mythic proportions—a story about hope for a fractured, misled country, a hope later thwarted by Reagan and Bush.
One Battle After Another is about nothing that isn’t already apparent on its glossy surface. The good guys prevail; the bad guy loses; the battle nominally continues, but who cares? Curiously, the only dimension stretching beyond the film’s cartoon boundaries is provided by Del Toro’s character, Carlos—an undocumented migrant community leader. Had the film centered on him, it might have had a semblance of heart. But it doesn’t—he’s relegated to comic relief.
OBAA is well-made, well-acted (albeit one-note), and slick. It tries to pass itself off as political discourse without earning the privilege. At least that’s what most critics think. In truth, it is as revolutionary as a designer Che Guevara T-shirt.
I haven't seen the movie, but it doesn't matter because your discussion of the film comes to the surface-minute problem with present emigration. I am an immigrant myself, but I came to the country with permission from the USA government, and I would like the other immigrants to come to the country legally, not this dangerous way as they do it now. There is no order in this situation, and both sides suffer. And politicians wrongly use both sides' troubles. They use so easily: "battles," "violence". I especially can't agree with their use of "fascism". How they understand this word of the full annihilation of the whole nation of the Jews, and Gypses, and other minorities during WWII. Modern politicians fighting for political power can impose subversive ideas on the people of their country. They carry more harm than good for the nation.
I commented before, after a brief skim, and I was missing something, which is why I deleted it. I enjoy the movie, which I realize wasn't itself at stake in this article. That said, I can't argue with its ethical weaknesses. I'm glad I finally got to read this whole thing! Thanks.
This was the worst and most reckless film. I’ve seen in a long time. I did appreciate the fact that we open up with the raid on an ice facility during the Obama administration.
And none of you are going to talk about the psychological priming for mixed race relationships happening all over Hollywood, TV, sleep number mattress commercials, on NBA sidelines, etc- to name a few. It’s a moral mythology for brainwashed morons addicted to theatrical assault and battery, while they eat their salt and buttery.
> However, Perfidia as the film’s “absent center” mystifies this impossibility—Perfidia acts as a universal mediator of the film’s dispersed content, she impersonates the excessive and destructive logic of today’s capitalism at its purest.
Zizek forgot to further emphasize here, that such logic is actually the societal & psychological base of the "phallus dream", and critique of which is the very point of feminism.
Great take on the movie, It's a great catch, Perfidia, is an inversion of the character in Vineland Frenesi Gates, who has opposite attributes. It feels a little like they switched the roles of the Brock Vond and Frenesi Gates romance in the book, and made Stephen obsessed in the way Frenesi was in the book. It's a little absurd, however I don't think Stephen is lying at the end when he is interrogated, because it's pretty easy to recognize that Willa is an untrustworthy narrator, and potentially in contact with her mom, who wrote the letter years ago, no one in the group had contacted Pat since he left with an infant.
As much as I don't know about Lacan or Freud, you filled in quite well. Perfidia as a phallus makes sense in the view that they switched the souls of Brock and Frenesi for the movie adaption. Why they would to that is anyone's guess
The film seems a bit to symbolic though that's a good influence for sure, It pretends to be a story about a lot of things, and has a great looney tunes quality, not sure what to make of it still, and been thinking about it a lot
As soon as we see, lockjaw, bloodied, marching through the smoke and flames at the end, like a terminator droid, I burst out laughing hard in the theater, and I was the only one. People looked at me like I was an asshole. Oh well.
Everyone was so serious about a movie based on a funny book about Tube addiction and infiltration of revolutionary groups, we might be in a similar place. or similar jerks, mine was when Dicaprio falls off the roof. All of the Lockjaw scenes are weird and pretty funny.
The best character's a fight between Avanti Q. the noble native American, and Virgil Throckmorton, the guy who wants to kill Willa & Lockjaw.
I do not know if they ever say the name Virgil Throckmorton in the film, one of the all times for me. We could use a whole film about the Christmas Adventurers origin story, if you ask me, and you didn't
The whole matter you describe, including Imperialism and Capitalism, is caused by disconnection from the Soul on both sides that unlashes the worst forces of domination, control, confusion, fear, ideology and despair.
"while I am fully aware that violence is often needed and fully justified"
Really?
As long as humans go Against each other they will be imprisoned in this dreadly world. There is no Just cause against. Only witholding the full scope and picture allows to come out of the Big Lie and into Real Life. Only reconnecting to Soul beyond all religion and ideology as the true Revolutionary act of rebellion.
Has it ever occurred to you that conflict is perhaps the defining site of human relation, I’m not only talking about violence, I mean the interaction of disparate agents. Without difference, tension and friction the relation between two things collapses into identity.
Just watched a pirate version online and for some reason my main focus kept drifting to Bob’s unapologetically unperfected moustache, Lockjaw’s bizarre hip movements, and that beautifully chaotic American car chase.
Mae West and Sensei absolutely stole the show for me.
This critique is exciting and incisive at points such as, “Perfidia is precisely the dream of a Woman as all, of a woman who is phallus.”However I object to the fight for illegal immigrants to escape incarceration as pro- Trumpian. You state,“As for One Battle After Another, to focus on the violent help to illegal immigrants is also problematic: it helps big capital (providing cheap labor and lowering the wages of American workers) and simultaneously raises support for Trumpian populists.” This is actually the opposite goal of the fascist agenda. In actuality, the administration kidnaps marginalized Latinos to create slave labor in ICE prisons.
But “One Battle After Another” doesn’t actually involve the Trump agenda, since the film contains a parody of the racist Billionaires.
The big problem with One Battle After Another (OBAA) is that it doesn’t stand for anything. None of the characters transcend what they represent on the surface. Thus, DiCaprio is an imbecilic revolutionary, and Penn is an imbecilic tool of oppression. The Christmas Adventurers are the blockheaded White elite. There is no subtext to these caricatures—no afterthought. OBAA is therefore reduced to the level of a Road Runner cartoon, with DiCaprio as the Road Runner and Penn as Wile E. Coyote. These cardboard cutouts have no third dimension.
One could generously read the film as an allegory for rebuilding a fractured family unit, but anchoring that idea to one of the most important and momentous periods in U.S. history seems awkward at best. And insensitive, when deployed purely for entertainment. Which is what OBAA ultimately is.
I would propose another film for comparison: Who’ll Stop the Rain (Karel Reisz, 1978), based on Robert Stone’s terrific novel Dog Soldiers. Here, the disillusioned, desperate journalist-narrator stands in for middle-class America confronted with imperial graft. He plays into it in an act of self-preservation. His wife embodies intellectual America, retreating into drugs and apathy to cope with ’60s violence. But the protagonist (Nick Nolte) serves as the conscience: an autodidact Merchant Marine who fights one last battle to even the scales. A veteran whose Hippy idealism was shattered by the Vietnam experience, he becomes a bridge between America’s institutionalized violence and its need for healing. In this way, Who’ll Stop the Rain achieves mythic proportions—a story about hope for a fractured, misled country, a hope later thwarted by Reagan and Bush.
One Battle After Another is about nothing that isn’t already apparent on its glossy surface. The good guys prevail; the bad guy loses; the battle nominally continues, but who cares? Curiously, the only dimension stretching beyond the film’s cartoon boundaries is provided by Del Toro’s character, Carlos—an undocumented migrant community leader. Had the film centered on him, it might have had a semblance of heart. But it doesn’t—he’s relegated to comic relief.
OBAA is well-made, well-acted (albeit one-note), and slick. It tries to pass itself off as political discourse without earning the privilege. At least that’s what most critics think. In truth, it is as revolutionary as a designer Che Guevara T-shirt.
You’re spot on with the Road Runner cartoon analogy. The final shot of the movie is straight out of Looney Tunes.
Pure ideology!
I haven't seen the movie, but it doesn't matter because your discussion of the film comes to the surface-minute problem with present emigration. I am an immigrant myself, but I came to the country with permission from the USA government, and I would like the other immigrants to come to the country legally, not this dangerous way as they do it now. There is no order in this situation, and both sides suffer. And politicians wrongly use both sides' troubles. They use so easily: "battles," "violence". I especially can't agree with their use of "fascism". How they understand this word of the full annihilation of the whole nation of the Jews, and Gypses, and other minorities during WWII. Modern politicians fighting for political power can impose subversive ideas on the people of their country. They carry more harm than good for the nation.
I commented before, after a brief skim, and I was missing something, which is why I deleted it. I enjoy the movie, which I realize wasn't itself at stake in this article. That said, I can't argue with its ethical weaknesses. I'm glad I finally got to read this whole thing! Thanks.
Not much of a article. Btw, the film itself is so-so...
And that weatherman is Ukraine
This was the worst and most reckless film. I’ve seen in a long time. I did appreciate the fact that we open up with the raid on an ice facility during the Obama administration.
And none of you are going to talk about the psychological priming for mixed race relationships happening all over Hollywood, TV, sleep number mattress commercials, on NBA sidelines, etc- to name a few. It’s a moral mythology for brainwashed morons addicted to theatrical assault and battery, while they eat their salt and buttery.
> However, Perfidia as the film’s “absent center” mystifies this impossibility—Perfidia acts as a universal mediator of the film’s dispersed content, she impersonates the excessive and destructive logic of today’s capitalism at its purest.
Zizek forgot to further emphasize here, that such logic is actually the societal & psychological base of the "phallus dream", and critique of which is the very point of feminism.
Great take on the movie, It's a great catch, Perfidia, is an inversion of the character in Vineland Frenesi Gates, who has opposite attributes. It feels a little like they switched the roles of the Brock Vond and Frenesi Gates romance in the book, and made Stephen obsessed in the way Frenesi was in the book. It's a little absurd, however I don't think Stephen is lying at the end when he is interrogated, because it's pretty easy to recognize that Willa is an untrustworthy narrator, and potentially in contact with her mom, who wrote the letter years ago, no one in the group had contacted Pat since he left with an infant.
As much as I don't know about Lacan or Freud, you filled in quite well. Perfidia as a phallus makes sense in the view that they switched the souls of Brock and Frenesi for the movie adaption. Why they would to that is anyone's guess
The film turned Vineland into In Dubious Battle - the Looney Tunes edition
The film seems a bit to symbolic though that's a good influence for sure, It pretends to be a story about a lot of things, and has a great looney tunes quality, not sure what to make of it still, and been thinking about it a lot
As soon as we see, lockjaw, bloodied, marching through the smoke and flames at the end, like a terminator droid, I burst out laughing hard in the theater, and I was the only one. People looked at me like I was an asshole. Oh well.
Everyone was so serious about a movie based on a funny book about Tube addiction and infiltration of revolutionary groups, we might be in a similar place. or similar jerks, mine was when Dicaprio falls off the roof. All of the Lockjaw scenes are weird and pretty funny.
The best character's a fight between Avanti Q. the noble native American, and Virgil Throckmorton, the guy who wants to kill Willa & Lockjaw.
I do not know if they ever say the name Virgil Throckmorton in the film, one of the all times for me. We could use a whole film about the Christmas Adventurers origin story, if you ask me, and you didn't
A Mr. Weatherman needed today?
And who would that be?
The whole matter you describe, including Imperialism and Capitalism, is caused by disconnection from the Soul on both sides that unlashes the worst forces of domination, control, confusion, fear, ideology and despair.
"while I am fully aware that violence is often needed and fully justified"
Really?
As long as humans go Against each other they will be imprisoned in this dreadly world. There is no Just cause against. Only witholding the full scope and picture allows to come out of the Big Lie and into Real Life. Only reconnecting to Soul beyond all religion and ideology as the true Revolutionary act of rebellion.
Has it ever occurred to you that conflict is perhaps the defining site of human relation, I’m not only talking about violence, I mean the interaction of disparate agents. Without difference, tension and friction the relation between two things collapses into identity.
Yep, we for sure need men in the know how to handle the upcoming weather. Weatherwomen too, many of 'em...
Bob Dylan invented rap music in '65 before anybody else was even paying attention.
Nice reading, thank you Slav.
Just watched a pirate version online and for some reason my main focus kept drifting to Bob’s unapologetically unperfected moustache, Lockjaw’s bizarre hip movements, and that beautifully chaotic American car chase.
Mae West and Sensei absolutely stole the show for me.
That is radical dude
His take on the classic fight scene in They Live is much better than this.