The Algerian Civil War of the 1990s is the setting for director Mounia Meddour’s semi-autobiographical drama. In the capital city Algiers, as tensions grow between the armed police and anti-government guerillas, fashion student Nedjma (Lyna Khoudri), known as Papicha to her friends, plans to hold a fashion show at her university campus. It’s a confrontational challenge to the fundamentalists who want women to hide their bodies that will have lasting implications on the lives of this group of determined young women.
The drama opens by introducing Papicha and Wasilla (Shirine Boutella) as young rebels sneaking out of the university grounds. When their taxi is stopped at a check point, the firearms and the commanding authoritarian voices of the men dismisses any romanticisation of youthful rebellion as the eyes of the two girls convey their fear. While the terrifying ordeal is brief, it will be one of many, and soon the pair are selling dresses they’ve made in the toilets of the nightclubs. This back and forth shift sets the tone for the film, which is a duel between youthful dreams in a violent and oppressive world, where they cannot be separated.
Words are important in Meddour’s drama, and the passion and conviction of Papicha in particular is infectious. We feel her anger and frustration in as much as we reasonably can, having no personal familiarity with such experiences as her own. There are many fiery exchanges where she expresses herself, whether to her friends, or even getting into a heated argument with Wasilla’s patriarchal leaning boyfriend. Yet it feels that the film picks its moments to make statements and to preach against oppression. These verbal protestations are measured to take an emotional portrait of the struggle with repression and adversity, and instil it with ideas.
In one scene Papicha says of the fundamentalist women who invade their rooms on campus, “They’re ignorant people. They abuse religion.” We share her anger, and what the filmmaker does is portrays the inclusive reality of Papicha’s strength and powerlessness, which is truthful to the realities of these hostile experiences when struggling with indifference.
One of the ideas that emerges from the drama is the irony that a devotion to God takes the form of fire and smoke, explosions and bullets, condemnation and bloodied hands. Meddour offers a point of view that religion and scripture need to be emancipated from man’s propensity for cruelty, and our misconception of the need for absolute spiritual devotion. Before our devotion to God is our responsibility to one another, and religion should encourage our empathy, compassion and understanding towards others.
In part based on real events, the memories Meddour shares with us of living under oppression should remind us that basic freedoms are a privilege. We do not have to fear a cold-blooded execution for voicing an opinion or expressing ourselves by some other means. We should not mistake freedom as a human right because in our civilisation it has always been a privilege for some, for others a hopeful dream.
The film is all the more unnerving as we see present day tensions escalate between the American people and Donald Trump. The egregious force used against protesters in Lafayette Square, Washington D.C, and the unlawful arrests by federal law enforcement officers in Portland, Oregon, offer a startling picture of democracy gone awry. Current events in the US penetrate a belief in the resolve of Western democracy to juxtapose itself with authoritarianism.
Papicha is a vital and important film, not only because history should never be forgotten, but by witnessing the struggles faced by Algerian women in the 1990s, the film can transcend time and evoke in us aforementioned values of compassion. The aspirational group of girls and their personal struggles are in a different and more extreme cultural context, but we can discover that we share an emotional and human connection. While politics, economics and religion can put up boundaries, art and film can break these down, and we should allow and encourage it to do so.
Papicha is streaming on Peccadillo Player and Curzon Home Cinema from Friday, August 7th.
It’s taken Edward Norton 20 years to adapt Jonathan Lethem’s novel Motherless Brooklyn for the screen, but it’s been worth the wait. Norton is best known as an actor, but his talent clearly extends a long way outside of that field – as well as being the lead, star actor here, he produced, wrote and directed, fulfilling all these duties as well as you can imagine any four separate people doing. You can sense the time that’s gone into this: the loving period detail, the feeling that the script has marinated so that the characters have a real depth to them on the page, the superb music score. There is a palpable sense here that you are watching one of the great private eye movies. Actually, there’s more than that… although this is a period piece, it feels very much about where we are now.
New York City, 1957. Lionel Essrog (Norton) works for Frank Minna’s detective agency. A confident, safe pair of hands, Minna (Bruce Willis) has taken a chance on Lionel who suffers from Tourette Syndrome. Someone will say a word or make a gesture and it will set Lionel off. He just can’t help it. Most people would regard Lionel as an unemployable misfit, a drain on social resources. Frank sees his potential. Lionel’s head detects patterns, makes connections, won’t leave puzzles alone until all the pieces that don’t quite fit have been assembled into a coherent whole. Lionel is now an invaluable asset on Frank’s crew.
So when in the opening minutes Frank goes to a meeting which leads to a car ride which ends in his death, the circumstances and background worm their way into Lionel’s subconscious and force him to investigate, ponder and try to make the disparate pieces fit together. Somewhere in the puzzle, an unseen member of numerous committees at City Hall, lies the power behind the city’s planning department, visionary developer Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin, the actor who among other roles is known for satirising Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live) who thinks nothing of demolishing areas where poor people live to further his idealised metropolis of the future. It’s simply collateral damage. Moses is contrasted with Paul (Willem Dafoe) who looks like a tramp but turns out to be a trained architect fallen from grace and the brother of Moses, with whom he has profound disagreements about urban development and the way people who live in a city should be treated.
Lionel’s investigations lead him to a woman named Laura Rose (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) at the Committee Against Racial Inequality in Housing. She drags him to a Harlem jazz dive where he discovers the music to be a liberating experience; if his Tourette’s is normally a cause of social embarrassment, here he finds himself involuntarily singing scat and impressing the players on the stage. He and she connect on the level of outsiders – he because of his so-called disability, she because of the colour of her skin. Eventually he will work out for himself her place in the complex puzzle his head is putting together.
Everything about this film – from its broadest brushstrokes to its finest detail – is magnificent. Nothing is here that hasn’t been considered, from Dick Pope’s satisfying noirish cinematography to a period jazz score with a contemporary urban edge involving legendary trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, composer Daniel Pemberton and a demo (of his song Daily Battles) by Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke. Norton’s vision is so strong and so detailed that he elicits and encourages incredible work from his well chosen team be they in front of or behind the camera.
More significantly though, the film is about something very important: ordinary people at the bottom of the pile, with their weaknesses and idiosyncrasies which make them human, doing the best they can. Perhaps even making a positive difference. And, at the other end of the social spectrum, the rich and powerful who walk all over them without seeing themselves doing anything wrong. It’s a US movie which clearly speaks to an America run by the despotic, racist and sexist Trump. The film doesn’t appear to be conceived that way – it was in development way before Trump was even a presidential nominee – it’s just that as a movie coming out now it seems to fit the place in which America currently finds itself. It likewise seems appropriate as a comment on the wider world right now. As for Britain, currently in the throes of a general election where the incumbent Tories appear to care little for truth in their duplicitous and deceitful campaigning, ordinary damaged heroes like Lionel who fight for human dignity as best they can are exactly what we need. The movie of the moment. Go see it as soon as you possibly can.
Motherless Brooklyn is out in the UK on Friday, December 6th.
Launched in February 2016, DMovies is now one-year old! And what better way to celebrate the occasion than a dirty talk with the filthiest filmmaker of all times? So our editor Victor Fraga got on the phone with the director on the other side of the Atlantic, as the UK braces for the theatrical and the Blu-ray release of the restored 1970 classic Multiple Maniacs.
The transgressive 70-year-old director from Baltimore (which is also where all of his films were made) is also a screenwriter, author, actor, stand-up comedian, journalist, visual artist and art collector. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for deeply subversive movies such as Multiple Maniacs (1970) and Pink Flamingos (1972), also catapulting his childhood friend Divine (whose real name was Harris Glenn Milstead) to stardom. Despite the fact that Divine passed away nearly three decades ago and he hasn’t made a film in 10 years, the director reveals that he is very busy with “plenty of homework”.
We talked to him about the modern significance of Multiple Maniacs, what Divine would be like if she was British, censors on both sides of the Atlantic, the bourgeiosation of gay culture, European cinema, Donald Trump, the cultural backlash against reactionary forces and much more. It’s time to smear yourself with twisted politics, sexual perversions and copious amounts of filth!
Multiple Maniacs is now “restored, reviled and revolting”, and it will be out in UK cinemas on February 17th. Stay tuned for our exclusive review of the film in the next few days, as well as details about the theatrical release and the Blu-ray!
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Victor Fraga – All of your films, including Multiple Maniacs, were set in Baltimore. How different would it be if they were set in London, or another city in the UK? Would that work? Would Divine be as psychotic?
John Waters – I don’t think it would’ve been that different because I would have glorified whatever everybody thought was wrong at the time, at whatever neighbourhood I lived in. It was made in 1969, the end of the hippie years, and that was the same in London and pretty much everywhere. So it would have had the same kind of violent, ludicrous pre-punk feel. Not that I knew what a punk was, because it hadn’t happened yet. It would’ve been the same, except that you would’ve had an English accent rather than Baltimore accent.
VF – Would Divine be as psychotic. Do you think that the American obsessions with religion and violence would translate as neatly into the UK?
JW – The censors in America were always against sex, while the censors in the UK were always against violence. In America they never object to violence. So we had a harder time in the UK. I know the film was cut there when it came out in video and so on. Every time I submitted it they cut less and less, until they realised the whole thing was parody and just let it go. I think the cannibalism was the bit that got me into trouble in London.
Back then there was no such thing at the Motion Picture Association of America yet. I never showed it to the censors for a long time because it played in underground places that were out of reach, such as churches and underground colleges. When it finally played in at the Charles Theatre in 1980 – an art cinema in Baltimore -, people went crazy, and many became insulted. This Catholic woman who ran the Theatre started crying. I had plenty of problems previously with Pink Flamingos (1972), but Multiple Maniacs was much earlier, and didn’t have enough distribution to get to their attention back then.
But they couldn’t really ban it, but that was the whole joke. There was no law against it, because why would there be? There were no laws against eating shit, rosary job and being raped by a lobster. How could you say that in court without laughing? And that’s the difference!
If you showed Multiple Maniacs at midnight to an audience stoned in Marijuana it would be a good happy thing. If you saw Multiple Maniacs in a courtroom at 8:00 am it would be obscene, and I never won a case neither for Pink Flamingos nor Multiple Maniacs. I was always found guilty.
According to John Waters, Americans are never shocked by violence; here Divine engages in cannibalism in a scene from Multiple Maniacs
VF – Were you ever found guilty in the UK or anywhere else in Europe?
JW – I was never found guilty because I was never charged there. But certainly when the whole thing called video nasties came up, they banned both Pink Flamingos and Multiple Maniacs. And it took them 10 years little by little for them to allow these films to be released. You don’t have the censor board now, do you?
VF – Yes, we do have the BBFC, our equivalent of the Motion Picture Association of America. Have you encountered any problems with them now that your film is getting theatrical distribution?
JW – No, I haven’t. A censor once told me: we don’t know how to deal with intentional bad taste. But now they know how to deal with it, and they finally accepted it as comedy. It was made a long time ago, and it’s in a historical context now, which it wasn’t back then! So it will be left alone, as it should!
VF – In a recent interview with DMovies, your Canadian filmmaker friend Bruce LaBruce talked about bourgeoisation of gay culture “I sense a certain moralism in the gay world, too. That’s because of the assimilation movement: gay marriage, kids, the military, even transsexuals colluding with the medical establishment.” – do you think gay people would have a more moralistic reaction to Multiple Maniacs if it was made now?
JW – Gay people are in some ways square, but that’s what comes with being accepted. I saw my movie [Multiple Maniacs] in Provincetown, which is this very gay summer resort with an audience which, believe me, reacted very shocked to all the craziness. Which I understand. Because according to today’s values, it’s far more shocking than it was back then, more alarming in a way. Even I was shocked when I watched it.
If you wipe away all the progress we made legally, gay people will certainly turn into outlaws again.
VF – Let’s hope that doesn’t happen!
JW – Why? Sometimes people that come against you make you stronger. Sometimes you need people that are against you in order to awake the fight. Otherwise it’s just a pat in the back that holds you back.
The lack of legislation about the consumption of canine faeces helped to keep John Waters out of trouble for many years; above Divine gets ready for a treat
VF – You have a fat, grotesque, sexually deviant, psychotic and extremely dangerous American running your country right now, and sadly it’s not Divine. Do you feel that Multiple Maniacs was very prescient of Donald Trump?
JW – Divine threatens Ronald Reagan’s life, which did shock me, I had forgotten that. And he wasn’t even president then. So I’m sure that if we ever remade Multiple Maniacs I would get Donald Trump to play Lady Divine.
VF – And who would play the rest of the troupe: Melania, Pence and so on?
JW – I’m gonna save that for my book. I have my enemy list, but I’m afraid I’m not going to share that right now! In today’s climate maybe we need to copy something from Nixon and start an enemy’s list.
VF – Trumpism, Brexit and neofascism represent a return to a more conservative age, but it’s often under such conditions that the most provocative art flourishes. Multiple Maniacs was made under Nixon, during the the time of the anti-pornography movement. Do you expect an explosive backlash against Trump? Do you expect another maniac to come up?
JW – I think that there will be a backlash, but I don’t think it will be in cinema though. In America, TV is better than independent film. Way more people see it, you make more money and you have just as much freedom. Will that crossover into movies? That’s a good question that I do not know. Because today you still have to make money. An independent movie should cost just a fifth of what it used to cost, but they still want big stars, music rights and so on, making it almost impossible to do.
I don’t know whether cinema will be able to parody Trump, when he’s already a parody, he’s already a bad reality show. It’s like a stale joke. Maybe we could do an all-transgered version of the Trump family inauguration. But to be honest I don’t know whether the rebellion will come from cinema. I hope the explosion comes from everywhere.
I bet Trump likes porn though.
VF – Do you have any evidence of that?
JW – I bet he even pays for it. I hope hackers reveal the titles that he downloads.
VF – What kind of fetishes would he have?
JW – He would probably want to be dominated. Most powerful men like to be dominated.
VF – Is Donald Trump the filthiest person alive? Did he claim the title from Divine?
JW – I’m sure there’s people worse than him. There’s this guy who wants capital punishment for gay people!
A transgender Donald Trump family would make a bright and colourful addition to the palette of American culture
VF – Do you think that TV has overtaken cinema in terms of subversion?
JW – I think Brian Murphy’s TV shows always seemed to push the button. To me, you can be an insider and be edgy and crazy. Why would you want to be an outsider these days? An outsider has no power and can’t get things done. You need to warm your way to the inside and infiltrate in order to make things work today. There are many people on TV who have made things that were untouchable as I was growing up acceptable now. I think television is the way to introduce ideas into Middle America. I think TV is more responsible for changing public opinion than independent movies are.
VF – You recently said that you “feel pessimistic about American independent films, not European ones.” Can you tell us a little bit about your favourite dirty European artists.
You can look every year at my list of 10 favourite movies and tell exactly what they are. The major difference is that in Europe the government pays for these movies, as they should. That’s something that’s completely impossible to imagine in America, government paying for a Todd Solondz movie, or Harmony Korine one. That is a giant difference.
I’m huge fan of Gaspar Noe, Bruno Dumond and this new film called Krisha. And who’s the one in Vienna?
VF – Ulrich Seidl, Michael Haneke?
JW – Yes, Ulrich Seidl, that’s him! I present this kind of movies around America in film festivals and so on. My top 10 list has never been nominated for the Oscars, even though I vote for the Oscars.
VF – You haven’t made a film in 10 years, but you have written two bestsellers. Can you tell us what’s next?
So many things! I have two book deals with my publisher, I have something called Make Trouble coming up, which is a gift book for graduates. There’s an illustrated book, spoken word tours, a big retrospective opening in 2018 at the Baltimore museum. I have so many homework assignments!
Voters have spoken up and their verdict is clear: Trump is the President-elect of the US. Is this time Americans and the rest of the world grovellingly respect the election results and rally behind the new chief, as despicable as he may be? After all, elections are the foundation of democracy upon which the US and most of the West is built. Well, I beg to differ.
While I don’t encourage anyone to boycott election results, or to stage a coup (like they did earlier this year in Brazil), I invite people to expose and to boycott this man’s deeply reactionary, manipulative and deceitful actions. I vehemently disapprove of Theresa May’s words. She not only magnanimously congratulated Trump, without any criticism of his Islamophobic, racist and sexist rhetoric, but she also seized the opportunity to highlight her very own deeply reactionary and xenophobic, anti-immigration agenda. May’s stance is empowering an extremely dangerous egomaniac, who already has too much power in his hands. It’s like handing a box of matches to a three-year old. This is beyond appeasement. This is beyond connivance. This is sycophantic collusion. And we all know where this could lead.
In 1940, the London-born Charlie Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, scored and starred in the American political-satire comedy-drama The Great Dictator. The film tells the story a poor Jewish barber who is mistaken for a dictator of a similar appearance and takes his place. In his rejection of the position he ends up delivering one of the most inspirational speeches ever recorded. His speech remains incredibly accurate 76 years later, and his call for resistance is just as urgent.
Donald Trump with recognisable smug smile; I would hazard a guess he’s thinking about his racial superiority.
A tale of two crooks
The Jewish barber is obviusly a parody of the Adolf Hitler, but many of his words would suit Donald Trump just as neatly. Despite the film title, Hitler was not a dictator. He was democratically elected in 1933 with 43,9% of the vote, not too far from Trump 47.3%. And unlike his modern American counterpart, Hitler won the popular vote. The dictator title here is merely figurative.
Chaplin’s message of unity and tolerance couldn’t be clearer: “I should like to help everyone – if possible – Jew, Gentile – black man – white. […] In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone”. Trump on the other hand has consitently decried equality and inclusiveness by slamming pretty much every existing minority. He has offended Mexicans immigrants: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best”, and he has proposed a blanked ban on Muslims entering the US. He also failed to disavow the Klu Klux Klan earlier this year.
Trump racial hygienist inclinations are bright as daylight, and this is no conspiracy theory. Today he appointed a white supremacist as his Chief Policy Advisor. Stephen Bannon is a prominent supporter of the ultranationalist alt-right movement, which advocates peaceful ethnic cleansing. “Our dream is a new society, an ethno-state that would be a gathering point for all Europeans.” – this is not Adolf Hitler, this is a declaration by a leader of the alt-right movement, which has now both a mandate and a platform inside the Whitehouse.
Chaplin asked for more: “we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost”. Trump has consistently dehumanised everyone except the normative, rich white males. He has objectified women, treating them as commodities to be grabbed “by the pussy”. He described supporters who beat up a homeless Latino man as “passionate”, and – according to a report – he described Brazilians as “latino pigs”. There actions are the antipode of humanity, kindness and gentleness.
Instead, it is greed and vulgar wealth that prevail in Trump’s grotesque world. “The beauty of me is that I’m very rich”, he fesses up. He campaign slogan heralded: “The point is, you can never be too greedy”. Chaplin couldn’t think more differently: “Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed”.
Trump allegedly described Brazilians as “latino pigs”; he probably thinks that his southertly neighbours lack any sort of humanity.
A message of hope
Chaplin wraps up his film with a very positive note of hope: “I say – do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish”. Hopefully we won’t have to wait until Trump dies bbefore people in the US can reclaim their sense dignity and solidarity. I like to think that he won’t be reelected in four years.
The British director carries on, with a call for action and resistance: “Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes – men who despise you – enslave you – who regiment your lives – tell you what to do – what to think and what to feel! Who drill you – diet you – treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder”. Of course Trump isn’t president yet and therefore he still hasn’t attacked any countries. Sadly military belligerence will be a natural byproduct of Trump’s tenure. I would even hazard a guess that Iran will be his first target. And the consequences will be catastrophic for the nation and the world, just like we saw with Iraq.
The UK refused to align itself with Germany during WWII, even if the declaration came a little late. On the other hand, the UK has enthusiastically aligned itself with the American war agenda since. Let’s hope this special relationship is not a blind one. Let’s hope that Britain will choose to honour Chaplin’s noble anti-war legacy of tolerance and kindness. Not Tony Blair’s. Let’s hope that dignity will prevail above political interests. So far, it’s not looking good.
Below are the video and the full transcript of Charlie Chaplin’s final speech in The Great Dictator:
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone – if possible – Jew, Gentile – black man – white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness – not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost….
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men – cries out for universal brotherhood – for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world – millions of despairing men, women, and little children – victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me, I say – do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. …..
Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes – men who despise you – enslave you – who regiment your lives – tell you what to do – what to think and what to feel! Who drill you – diet you – treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men – machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate – the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!
In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” – not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power – the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then – in the name of democracy – let us use that power – let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world – a decent world that will give men a chance to work – that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world – to do away with national barriers – to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
