conflict

Spy Garbo (3/6/11)

brittany — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

New York, New York

Sheila Schwartz’s Spy Garbo, an innovative multi-media production, takes place in history’s limbo, the eternal resting place of three prominent twentieth century political players. The first is Generalissimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde, played by Steven Rattazzi with a perfect mix of pomp, arrogance, and affability. The fascist leader of Spain from 1939 to 1975, Franco is displeased by his now-tarnished image and presents himself as the eternal victim, a peacemaker who did everything in his power to remain neutral during the war, a misunderstood genius who should be lionized rather than condemned.

His quest for adulation brings him into contact with two additional attention seekers. The first is Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, enacted by Steven Hauck with the stiff upper lip and rigid bearing often associated with the Third Reich. At one time, Canaris served as Hitler’s Military Intelligence Chief, but his ultimate betrayal of the Fuhrer led the Gestapo to execute him in 1945.

Franco’s second competitor is Harold Adrian Russell, aka Kim Philby—played by the excellent Chad Hoeppner with brash charm that slowly dissolves as he descends into alcoholism—another double agent who ultimately defected to the former Soviet Union where he penned the 1968 bestseller, My Secret War.

Hovering over the three is the never seen but frequently referenced Spy Garbo, a real-life Spanish double agent—identified post war as Juan Pujol Garcia—whose espionage served both Britain and Germany.

There’s much to recommend Spy Garbo, not the least being the 130-foot video screen that surrounds the audience. Throughout the production, archival footage weaves images of Hitler, Franco, and 1940’s film stars into a seamless background that is simultaneously eerie and intriguing.

“Film makes history immortal,” Franco muses as he turns toward the screen and it is clear that that he longs for the adoration that seems exclusive to movie icons. As Philby and Canaris join Franco’s lament, a horrifying truth is revealed: while most of us will recall the names of film legends decades after their passing, few will recall the spies or military strategists who orchestrate our theaters of war.

And that’s the problem with Spy Garbo. Although audiences without deep knowledge of World War II can certainly understand the overall thrust of the play, those lacking a thorough grasp of the period will miss the nuances of the production and will likely find the dialogue—sequential monologues by each actor—overly diffuse. Indeed, while it is fascinating to see the three men vie for a spot on history’s top ten list, the play would have been more successful had it framed the action with hard facts about the war.

A short narration at the beginning, for example, might have offered an overview, explaining a bit about the era. In addition, a narrator might also have linked the global conflict of sixty years ago to contemporary warfare, bridging the distance between then and now.

That said, Spy Garbo is a provocative look at the male ego and a well-directed, beautifully acted, and well-staged production. And, since the historical record is typically written by the victor, Spy Garbo underscores the subjectivity of truth, reminding us that who does the telling is as important as what we’re told about the when, where, and how of life’s ongoing dramas.

Spy Garbo will run through April 11, 2011 at 3-LD Art and Technology Center, 80 Greenwich Street, New York, NY. Tickets are $30 and can be ordered by calling the box office at 212.352.3101.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, March 20th 2011

Zero Bridge

brittany — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Directed by Tariq Tapa

Joyless FIlms, Artists Public Domain

Scenes from this film and the emotions they elicited continued to resonate in my mind for hours after I saw it. Zero Bridge is an understated yet profound film that shows us a slice of life in Kashmir, a place most of us know little about.

The story follows Dilawar, a seventeen-year-old Kashmiri boy that lives with his uncle and is struggling to find his way. He is driven by a desire to leave Kashmir and hopefully join his adoptive mother in Delhi. In order to secure the means necessary to escape, he is led to take money for doing other people’s homework and become a pickpocket. During an errand at a shipping company, he meets Bani, a woman who happens to be one of his pickpocket victims. Their connection turns out to be deeper than a coincidental meeting. First time director and writer Tariq Tapa, an American of Kashmiri and Jewish descent grew up spending summers in Indian-administered Kashmir. Through his personal observations and commitment to telling a story about the region that doesn't fall into Bollywood or Hollywood stereotypes, he created Zero Bridge.

The film was shot entirely on location in Kashmir, India’s northern most state, which borders Tibet and Pakistan. In 1947, India and Pakistan gained independence from Britain and soon after the two nations went to war over Kashmir. Although a border called “line of control” has been established between Indian and Pakistani Kashmir, conflict remains an issue in the region. Most recently, unarmed civilians have led uprisings against the Indian army every year since 2006.

Filming in this setting makes for a harsh working environment that blends together with the splendor of Kashmir’s landscape to create an intriguing contrast. One of the strongest moments of displaying this contradiction came after a demoralizing scene between Dilawar and his uncle where the audience doesn’t actually see the characters, but they feel the intensity of an abusive relationship. This scene was followed directly by a moment of a serene sunset over the mountains, effectively helping to ease the tension. The politics of Kashmir never take center stage in the film but seem to linger as a supporting cast member. News stories from newspapers and on the radio permeate the background in many scenes. Although the film is not overtly political, it does give a voice for the region and, I believe, will motivate the audience to learn more about the contested territory.

I came to care about the main characters without consciously realizing it was happening. The subtle nature of the film is felt in the relationship that grows between Dilawar and Bani. My favorite scene in the whole movie features this pair engaging in a game of chess. Not very many words are spoken, but you can feel a strong yet innocent flirtation that many of us aspire to have in our lives from time to time. Their relationship feels like a breath of fresh air amid the challenges that both the characters and the setting are enduring.

A feeling I continued to have throughout the film was one of being trapped, whether by culture, family, or actual borders. There is a powerful juxtaposition in the characters’ desire to literally break away from Kashmir and metaphorically break away from family expectations. Although we don’t all face such restrictive cultural obstacles like arranged marriages, many of us face growing pains while becoming independent adults.

Written by: Andrea Hance, February 15th 2011

Coexist

tina — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Directed by Adam Mazo

Amazo Productions

Coexist is a documentary that seeks to provide insight into the reconciliation process in Rwanda after the 1994 genocide. The sheer scale and complex nature of the conflict provides a unique glimpse into how individuals and their communities recover from horrific experiences and the documentary questions whether reconciliation is even possible under such traumatic conditions. Recently, Rwanda was recognized for its stable political environment and for achieving one of the highest economic growth rates in the world. Through the voices of Rwandans, Coexist provides a means of examining how social and political reconstruction has been managed.

The documentary provides the context for which the genocide took place. Major ethnic groups were at the center of the genocide, despite there being little difference between the groups. Coexist does not highlight Rwanda’s colonial history. It is, therefore, unable to explore how this experience shaped political struggles in the nation. The documentary attributes the intensity and sheer scale of the genocide to fear, without providing a historical context of Rwanda. This deprives the viewer of vital insights into the extreme violence unleashed during the 1994 genocide. To its credit, Coexist does shed light on the role that the elite, at the national and local level, played in triggering and sustaining the genocide through the voices of victims and perpetrators.

The Adam Mazo-directed documentary also focuses on the nature of the state-backed reconciliation process which has required, among other things, the reintegration of perpetrators into communities. Touching on very sensitive issues, the voices of victims and perpetrators provide a very graphic take on a chapter of world history that continues to traumatize the population of this African state.

What strikes me as interesting is that the reconciliation process is depicted as being insulated from public debate. Coexist demonstrates the resilience of the victims and juxtaposes this against a latent resistance to the reconciliation imposed by the Rwandan state. The documentary succeeds in directly confronting the nature of the repressive Rwandan state. For instance, Coexist does illustrate how the Rwandan state has managed to maintain a façade of resolution in the midst of flashes of violence and political repression. This is further reinforced by a state-backed narrative glossing over the violence the (now ruling) Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebel army unleashed on unarmed civilians during the conflict. The added fact that reprisal attacks continue on genocide survivors, who either testify or act as judges in the traditional Gacaca courts, illustrates that reconciliation is still uncertain.

Due to the scale of the genocide, the path to peace does imply that victims would have to tolerate some of the perpetrators. The question that remains to be addressed is whether the approach adopted provides a long-term resolution. The role that political struggles over property played in the genocide also received some attention in the documentary, but the issue was not examined closely. As a result, Coexist left me wondering if the distribution of power and resources in Rwanda has the ability to secure stability and peace for current and future generations.

Coexist attempts to universalize the message of tolerance in the midst of conflict resolution, but the lack of a reflection on Rwanda’s historical experience, which has shaped political struggles, deprives the viewer of understanding the depth of the conflict. The dilemma left for future generations to confront is how to repair the damage wrought by violence and Coexist succeeds in emphasizing the role tolerance must play in this process.

Written by: Hibist W. Kassa, December 14th 2010

Survival of the Dead

admin — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Directed by George Romero

Magnolia Pictures

Pop films that take on politics tend to do so as an add-on and go all over the place. Since I have come late to zombie films and director George Romero, perhaps I am being unfair to Romero and his Survival of the Dead, the latest of his zombie films, in expecting consistent politics from a gore fest, but perhaps dystopia deserves its due.

The only zombie film I have ever seen—if “seen” can mean glimpsed out of the corner of a fearful child’s eye—was a production rerun on afternoon television sometime in the 1950s, in my case, to keep children content while they waited for a school bus. However, like Romero, I was a fan of pre-code horror comic books. A gloomy disposition predisposes me to dystopia. With this risk factor, perhaps I was slated to become zombie food.

The movie takes place in the near future in which a disease has conferred a horrid form of immortality on the dead. National Guardsman Sarge (Alan Van Sprang) is on killing duty in the morgue, where bodies spring to murderous life. A fellow Guardsman who refuses to shoot a buddy-turned-zombie is summarily executed; Sarge and a few comrades say enough already—actually, “I didn’t sign up for this”—and go AWOL into a lawless United States, where the only protection is individual armed self-protection, but nighttime comics telling zombie jokes can still be downloaded on a PC. Surviving as thieves, Sarge and his band are busy not only killing zombies coming back to life, but also dealing with the generalized violent breakdown of society.

After a confrontation with another band of renegades, a young man (Devon Bostick) who survives the encounter (and provides some additional snarky, intergenerational conflict) joins up with them to take off in an armored van with a safe full of money. The posse ends up heading for Plum Island (ostensibly off the coast of Delaware, though the film was shot in Canada) because an Internet huckster, Patrick O’Flynn, is luring social outcasts, now much of the population, there to rob them. O’Flynn has been exiled from the island as a result of a long-standing family feud with another clan. (How two Irish clans got on this island in the first place is left unexplained, but there are hints of religious fundamentalism and right-wing survivalism.) A great subplot is the hopeless courting of the lesbian tomboy by her would-be Latin lover/comrade in arms and the genuine nonsexual affection between them.

Romero is quoted as saying the movie is about war, but it could as easily be about too permissive gun laws justified by the Second Amendment. Or out-of-control conflicts over different strategies for dealing with a serious threat—the overlay of the feud. Or it could just be a corkboard for any one-off social commentary—about professional salaries or the narrow perspectives of small towns—that can be stuck in a spot in the plot.

The real Plum Island, off the coast of Long Island, is the site of the federal Animal Disease Center run by the Department of Homeland Security, and at one time a secret bio-weapons research facility. There, any wild mammal is said to be shot on sight. This is O’Flynn’s solution to the zombie problem, while his rival, Muldoon, wants to rehabilitate them.

“Zombie”—as in banks—is fast becoming an overused metaphor. In the book Imaginal Machines, cultural theorist Stevphen Shukaitis presents an analysis of the capitalist transformation of human workers into labor power, living into dead labor; cooptation/recuperation of social movements into nightmare versions of themselves; and the question of whether such altered movements could be truly revitalized or need to be put out of their misery—all strung, along with their sources, on the extended metaphor of zombification.

Personally, I like zombies better as the main attraction, when they are actors in heavy makeup “getting their brains” blown out in movies; and when social commentary, however scattershot, is the sideshow.

Written by: Frances Chapman, June 10th 2010

Emotional Bullshit: The Hidden Plague That Is Threatening to Destroy Your Relationships—And How to Stop It

admin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 10:42:00 +0000

By Carl Alasko, Ph.D.

Tarcher

Emotional bullshit, however far flung, rarely consists of strategies for conflict aversion. Carl Alasko’s Emotional Bullshit: The Hidden Plague that Is Threatening to Destroy Your Relationships—And How to Stop It consists of strategies for identifying and replacing those habits. Denial, delusion, and blame sneak into our repertoire, to make us look or feel better about our job, our part in a relationship, or role in our family, how far we’ve digressed from our goals and integrity, or keeping promises, to ourselves and others. In some it is tastelessly obvious, in others it is virtually undetected, at least for a while.

Alasko describes three common habits: denial, delusion and blame as a self-camouflaging sequence, in addition to that pesky, prickly good feeling we get from serotonin when we’re in love can help us get hooked on delusions about a relationship, even when we at first see bad signs. Like any good self-help book, it makes a lot of sense, and yet it is original and interesting.

My eager endorsement of the book may be self-incriminating; allow me to follow a genre approach to elucidate: Do you often spend time, energy or other resources avoiding conflict? Do you rationalize your own or others behavior? Following a confrontation do you have thoughts about how right or how much better you are? Are you often lonely or are you usually in relationships that are parasitic or filled with strife? In short, anyone who has strife in a relationship of any kind could theoretically benefit.

There are a couple strategies on how to deal immediately with conflict, even if you are in a position where you cannot respond, or are incapacitated to respond well. And there are more complex strategies for engaging in ongoing discussion with someone you have an intimate relationship with and are committed to. These are "fool proof if you follow all the steps/rules." Realistically, I can imagine very many alternate "out of bounds" responses and outcomes for every case study that went well.

To the author's credit, attempts one, two and three to getting it right are often described. Some of the couples' true stories are very moving. I can't help but think that they benefited particularly by having the author as their therapist, and that undertaking the strategy, however simple, as "amateurs" and without a neutral, and professional, mediator, could take a lot more tries. Still, better self-awareness, at least, can be achieved by reading Emotional Bullshit: The Hidden Plague that Is Threatening to Destroy Your Relationships—And How to Stop It.

Written by: Heather Irvine, March 29th 2009