Blame it on Fidel
- Mike Gunn
- Oct 19, 2007
- Series: Film
Blame it on Fidel is a delightful film about a precocious nine year old girl named Anna (Nina Kervel) trying to make sense of her vastly changing world. The time set is 1970 at the zenith of a massive socio-political changes in Europe and America. Anna's first eight years had been spent mostly in Paris in a large house owned by her parents who deeply loved her, and had created a very comfortable environment for her to grow up in. She attended a private, catholic school, and lived a very ordered, safe life until her uncle was killed as a "militant" under the fascist regime of Franco in Spain. This soon extricated Anna from her comfort and the illusion of control to a chaotic mess of politics and a crumbling worldview.
A trip to Chile transformed Anna's attorney parents into communist ideologues, and overnight Anna's world of innocence was pulled out from underneath her and changed forever. Her family moved from a nice, big comfortable house in a wealthy area to a small apartment in a working class neighborhood. Her quiet evenings with her mom and dad were consistently interrupted by questionable characters holding meetings and saying unspeakable things such as, "Mickey Mouse is a fascist!" Her world of classical training was replaced with protests for women's rights, group solidarity, and the overthrow of oppression everywhere. Her beloved nanny was fired for her political leanings, and Anna's dad forced her to leave her religion classes at her school, which caused her public embarrassment and was ostracized by some of her friends. These things affected Anna greatly, and created an unstable foundation for her to make sense of her changing world.
Her favorite subject in her religion class was Genesis, because it made sense of her world. It was a meta-narrative explaining some of life's biggest questions, and it gave her comfort. For her dad, that kind of comfort was an "Opium for the people." It was garbage, a myth that uneducated people use to make sense out of mystery. The movie gently reinforces this idea as Anna goes through several nannies from different cultures that all seem to have their own "Fable" explaining similarly how the world came in to existence. This disillusions Anna, and allows her to realize in a simple way that all of these "isms" are empty and meaningless, and the only truth comes from our own ability to reason. And so Anna was converted! She threw off the shackles of control and oppression, and realized that answers do not come from religion, myths or these weird political people, they come from her own sense of knowing. This is cemented in a conversation with her dad, who himself began to realize that human ideologies (Religious or political) aren't the answer to our human problems, but our gut feelings are what tells us that Mickey Mouse really isn't a fascist.
In the end, Anna relinquishes her demand to stay in her rigid Catholic school and agrees to go to the public school. The movie ends amazingly with Anna showing up her first day at the public school where she is struck by the lack of order and chaos surrounding her in the play yard. While the scene depicts a definite fear and confusion in her eyes, the camera angle changes to a birds eye view (The Heavenly Gaze), and in the midst of chaos and kids running and bumping in to one another, some kids take Anna's hand in a gesture of acceptance and form a circle of unity as the shot pans higher above this spiritual scene, depicting a sort of unity in the midst of chaos reminding us of the messiness of this world. The shot reminds us that the only heavenly gaze are the ones we create, and that meta-narratives (Grand stories that make sense out of life) don't really exist. It is only through our own human devices that we can make sense of this world in a small way.
First, I would like to say that I loved this film, and thought that Nina Kervel was fantastic and deserving of many awards! The film was thought provoking, humorous and brought you into the life of a nine year old in a way that many of us have forgotten about.
Secondly, where I would agree with the movie's premise that you cannot control the world around you, and that all of our political and religious ideologies do not give us answers, the writers have been converted by another ideology that fits our current, western cultural "zeitgeist." It seems to me that the cultural feeling is that if we shun religion or the "Oppressive" gods of this world, we will finally be in control of our own destiny, but this sentiment is just another gospel story, replete with it's own ideology and dead ends. How many times will we hear that humans are the answer, when it is humans that have created religion, politics, and every mess known to humanity? How can we know that the answer "Lies within?" Maybe the answer lies outside of us, which helps create a "New Way" to be human?
Thirdly, I would say that this movie made me think about our kids, and the way they process the world we force them into. I guess this is what we have all gone through, but is there a way to help them process these grand events in their lives in ways that are less confusing? Have we forced our children to be what we want them to be, without shaping them in a way that gives them the ability to choose well?
I would give this movie a PG rating. Content is great for the whole family, but there is talk of abortion, revolution, Communism, sexuality and a some language that may be deemed inappropriate for some children.
Read more reviews from Mike Gunn at: http://past-the-popcorn.gospelcom.net/index.php/author/MikeG
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