Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Bhasi (A) on November 20, 2009 at 00:49:43

In Reply to: RE: Surely you have seen "Come and See" which is a portrait of horror... posted by mr grits on November 19, 2009 at 16:12:22

'History is written by the victors,' so it's good to discover books and films that contradict or deepen the accounts of war and its consequences which gain greater popularity.

I haven't seen Come and See but will steel myself to. Thanks for the pointer.

Claude Lanzmann's Shoah (of the same year, 1985) is probably the most affecting film I've seen on this topic, together with Pasolini's ghastly metaphorical Salò (1975).

Bảo Ninh's The Sorrow of War (1991) is a great novel about Vietnam that has not yet, I don't think, been filmed.

My wife has been telling me for years that I must see Harry Hook's The Kitchen Toto (1987), about British colonial rule in Kenya, but I've yet to track it down. It's most famous for the closing screen of text which lists the statistics of the mid-50's 'state of emergency': something like 80 Europeans and 14,000 Africans dead.

Sadly, the raw materials for future works in this genre are being enacted as we speak.

Edits: 11/20/09   11/21/09