Movies can be a great source of escapism and distraction from the increasingly worrying concerns of the outside world, and indeed this column tends to offer plenty of escapist options from animation to surrealism to superhero fare.
But eventually, we all have to face the music, and cinema can be a great arena for that as well.
Some of the most important films in history have used the medium to confront the most pressing issues of their time, from wealth and power consolidation in “Citizen Kane” to global war dynamics in “Casablanca” to media manipulation in “Network” and even desperate class struggle in the modern masterpiece “Parasite.”
We’ve even seen a bit of it already this year with Ari Aster’s searing “Eddington” and even more than audiences might’ve expected in James Gunn’s deeply relevant new “Superman.”
But with the politics of the moment heating up to historically divisive, venomous, and unfortunately even violent levels, OKC theaters are getting set for a handful of films that comment openly on things like mass surveillance, radical activism, and authoritarianism.
So if you want to dive in and see some of the most exciting voices in recent filmmaking confronting the rapidly dissolving discourse of today, then you’re in luck.
And if you’re the type of moviegoer that would rather films remain escapist, then sorry. Maybe stay home and stream a “Star Wars” series like “Andor.” There couldn’t possibly be anything political in some space-fantasy sci-fi show, right?
‘Orwell: 2+2=5’ – Oklahoma City Museum of Art – October 10th through 12th
One of the most outspoken and uncompromising filmmakers and documentarians in the game right now, Raoul Peck has been making waves and ruffling feathers for years with projects like “Exterminate all the Brutes,” “The Young Karl Marx,” and the Oscar-nominated “I Am Not Your Negro,” exploring the experience of Black America.
He returns to the documentary field once again with the new “Orwell: 2+2=5,” a deep and concerningly prescient examination of author George Orwell’s works of authoritarian warning, combining excerpts from the author’s writing, historical footage, and glimpses at the systems of our current world.
It’s become almost banal and uninspired to invoke Orwell’s works – particularly his masterpiece of totalitarian paranoia, “1984” – in reference to the politics of today, but Peck’s reframing and reconsideration places the author’s words of warning back at the forefront of anti-authoritarian discourse where they belong.
With news, media, language, and even the truth itself being so often weaponized for political ends, now is a perfect time to be reminded of where it can all lead.
For showtimes, tickets, and more information, visit okcmoa.com.
‘One Battle After Another’ – Now Playing wide
Few directors can keep audiences on their toes quite like Paul Thomas Anderson, the genre-hopping purveyor of auteur epics like “There Will be Blood,” “Boogie Nights,” “Phantom Thread,” and “Magnolia” (which may well be my favorite film of all time, for the record.)
Well, “PT” is back again with another left-field choice of material: an overtly political action-thriller-comedy based on a novel by the famously reclusive Thomas Pynchon, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and skewering military machismo while championing the liberation fight of America’s Black women.
In “One Battle After Another,” DiCaprio stars as a washed-up, drug addicted former radical activist and political disrupter attempting to stay hidden and out of sight of all the unfinished business of his past.
When some of that business resurfaces and his daughter goes missing, he has to wade back into the fight and confront his past, his family, his old friends, his old enemies, and the entire system that he once dedicated his life to bringing down.
It’s a testament to the current polarization of mainstream discourse that a film centered on left-wing radicals could not only see nationwide wide release and massive critical acclaim, but that it could be made within the big-money Hollywood system at all.
Whether or not a film made within such a system can effectively comment on it will have to be a deeper conversation for another time.
‘Happyend’ – Oklahoma City Museum of Art – October 17th through 18th
The unfortunate truth is that while everyone is arguing about what they want out of the world and how it should all be run, we tend to forget that the youth of today are the ones that will have to live in that world long after we’re gone.
The policies, sentiments, systems, and technologies that we’re creating right now are going to dictate and dominate children’s’ lives for years in ways that they currently have no say or control over.
That’s the theme of Japanese director Neo Sora’s prophetic new teen drama “Happyend.”
A coming-of-age tale for the Digital Age, it follows a group of high school students in a very near-future Tokyo not only navigating love, friendship, and the disorienting cusp of adulthood, but also an increasingly suffocating surveillance state, overbearing government chest-beating, and worsening natural disasters.
After pulling a prank on their humorless school principal, they find that omnipresent surveillance tech a daily part of their lives in the school, with facial recognition, algorithms, and punitive threats covering their every move.
Like any good, timely teen movie, it’s all about the question of how to make your own way in the world. That’s a question that becomes infinitely more difficult when the world is moving so fast that you can’t keep up.
And it’s a question we should all be asking ourselves right now.
For showtimes, tickets, and more information, visit okcmoa.com.
Catch Brett Fieldcamp’s film column weekly for information and insights into the world of film in the Oklahoma City metro and Oklahoma. | Brought to you by the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.
Brett Fieldcamp is our Arts and Entertainment Editor. He has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for 15+ years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
