Really a most thought-provoking dystopia film with a bizarre ending that like most great movies - leaving you wondering...
It drags a bit and is quite silly in the first half hour, but then it picks up, adding elements, symbolism, styles and phrases of dystopian regimes throughout the past 2-300 years.
The basic plot tells of a shift between an aristocratic fascist consumerist decadent regime to a fundamentalist communist anti-knowledge mobocratic one - most similar in style to what happened in Russia post 1917, the first part, and China post 1949 or even Iran post 1979, the second part.
Throughout, the film intersperses bits of rhetoric that make you ponder as to what its message might be.
Unexplained vignettes of Elephants and Schizophrenia deepen the message and add layers to what might originally come across as popcorn-satire with a powerful cast. The apparent twist towards the end is well executed and is the cherry on top.
But it certainly could have been made with more finesse, but then perhaps it would have been too serious to hold any box-office appeal, which political satire always must capture - for otherwise it would not be of much purpose.
It drags a bit and is quite silly in the first half hour, but then it picks up, adding elements, symbolism, styles and phrases of dystopian regimes throughout the past 2-300 years.
The basic plot tells of a shift between an aristocratic fascist consumerist decadent regime to a fundamentalist communist anti-knowledge mobocratic one - most similar in style to what happened in Russia post 1917, the first part, and China post 1949 or even Iran post 1979, the second part.
Throughout, the film intersperses bits of rhetoric that make you ponder as to what its message might be.
Unexplained vignettes of Elephants and Schizophrenia deepen the message and add layers to what might originally come across as popcorn-satire with a powerful cast. The apparent twist towards the end is well executed and is the cherry on top.
But it certainly could have been made with more finesse, but then perhaps it would have been too serious to hold any box-office appeal, which political satire always must capture - for otherwise it would not be of much purpose.