Change Your Image
theocre
Reviews
Under Suspicion (2000)
Why does Hearst confess
At the risk of sounding pretentious, the movie seems reminiscent of Kafka's The Trial. Josef K. declares his innocence, then he states that he can't confess since he doesn't know what he is being charged with. To which either the fuzz or the Magistrate replies: If you don't know what you are being charged with, then how do you know you are innocent. Meaning: everybody is guilty of something, either in a strict legalistic sense or in a metaphysical sense (no one is without sin). Everybody has hidden secrets some criminal, some just embarrassing- that a person wants to keep hidden, which causes that person to act really guilty. As the saying goes: only saints and madmen don't know guilt.
The movie also reminded me of Citizen X, a movie about Andrej Tsjikatilo, the infamous Rostov Ripper. In this movie a psychiatrist makes the killer confess by using a psychoanalytical method: the patient (suspect) is repetitively confronted with his morbid repressed desires in order to break him down to the ground by destroying his defense mechanisms- and then rebuild (cure) him. The problem with using this method in a police interrogation is obvious: a worn down suspect can be in a messed up state of mind and confess crimes he didn't do (although Tsjikatilo was guilty as sin and they cured him by blowing his brains out). In the Netherlands there was a famous case in 2002 in which two(!) suspects confessed a horrible crime they as later turned out- didn't do.
As for why Hearst (Gene Hackman) doesn't ask for legal representation. This movie is a remake from a French movie (Garde a Vue). In many countries - unlike in the United States- one does not have a right to have legal counsel present during questioning by police officers. One can only have legal counsel present when questioned by a magistrate. This is about 'equality of arms', since police officers are not legal experts and would be out of their league against a legal scholar. This is mentioned in Garde a Vue.
Le pacte des loups (2001)
Da Vinci Code for real idiots
I thought the movie was predictable and boring. Anyone with half a brain could figure out halfway that every liberal Hollywood-cliché was going to be used to the fullest extent possible: the creepy blue-eyed villain, the evil clergy, the whore and the Indian who are wise beyond all measure, the historically displaced but feelgood minority sidekick. And what's with that martial arts nonsense in 18th century France. The Belucci character was just stupid. A papal courtisan? Sigh. It's not that catholic teaching is a big secret.
Now, before the exhaustive and condescending replies from provincial California commence: I approve of the Laïcité (like y'all know what that is), but anti-catholicism is so safe and commonplace nowadays (see Da Vinci Code). I wouldn't mind some good ultramontanist villains, but can't they at least keep their anti-catholic bigotry straight. There is a downward spiral from La Reine Margot (1994) to Le Pacte des loups. It shows that even French cinema is thoroughly corrupted by American Political Correctness.
I'm glad we left the era of anti-Indian prejudice behind us, but do we have to put up with all that present day's happy-clappy New Age rubbish?
06/05 (2004)
you don't know jack
I think the movie insufficiently shows how the immigration debate was muddled by intolerance, obscurantism, intimidation and character assassination, and how it eventually led to physical assassination. Some user comments give you a flavour, though. Pravda-5 seems to be consumed by the most intense racial animosity, directed against the Dutch, who stand accused of "in-bread racism" (the word is inbred, by the way). This is exactly the Soviet-like unmeasured demagoguery that had Fortuyn killed. Would I be allowed to make a generalization of my own? Would it be off-limits to present some statistically significant data about crime committed by immigrants, which makes the Dutch a bit wary and suspicious? Now that would be racism, wouldn't it? Or the fact that a significant minority is involved in gang and violent criminal activity and that large portion of these people feel alienated from the dominant culture and have made it explicitly clear that they will do as they please, regardless of what the laws say. Another fact is that we are one the most racially diverse of the leading industrialized nations, with the biggest percentage of non-Western immigrants. That we have done many things for the eternally "disaffected" Muslims: We have build them mosques with imposing minarets all over Rotterdam, Amsterdam and the rest of the country, we have authorized state grants to Islamic schools etc. etc. Many Muslims however relate to their host countries in ways that are diametrically opposed to the multicultural indulgence that they have received. Did I mention that Van Gogh is dead, like Fortuyn? And that two prominent politicians are into hiding for the rest of their lives? That sort of proves their point, doesn't it? I also can't say that I'm much impressed by the idiot schoolmarmish cant about racism and xenophobia from SnoopDogDog from Albania. To call opinions you don't like racist is such a debasement, the question is: are they t-r-u-e?". A phobia is an irrational fear of something or someone. It is not irrational to fear those who follow issued fatwa's. Fortuyn was a public-spirited person doing his citizenly best to promote his idea that freedom of speech is more important than the supposed feelings of Muslims. Fortuyn's opinions were politically incorrect, the opinions of the left were simply incorrect, comparing him to Hitler in a very volatile period of World War II commemorations, which was an offence to objective truth and reason. However, Fortuyn never thought that any speech should be legally banned. By the way, we take the p*ss out of everyone, we're Dutch! Catholics, protestants, homosexuals, foreigners and since recently Muslims. No suffering stronger than hurt feelings is involved.