Sadly, fascism’s not new, and sadly, it’s not old. These five films shine a light on its dangers and – by laughing at it, exposing it and/ or thrashing it senseless – go some way to fighting back.
The Great Dictator (1940)
Charlie Chaplin’s first true sound film, and his most successful commercially, this classic political satire is notable for its galvanising condemnation of Hitler and Mussolini, with Chaplin playing the duel roles of fascist dictator and a Jewish barber-turned-First-World–War-soldier facing persecution.
Chaplin’s uncanny resemblance to Hitler, of course, was helped along by Hitler growing his own version of the comedian’s iconic toothbrush moustache.
The film gained five Oscar nominations, with Chaplin writing, directing, producing, scoring, distributing and starring.
The synopsis:
‘During World War I, an anonymous private, (Chaplin) fighting in the army of Tomania, effects the valiant rescue of an officer named Schultz, but suffers loss of memory when the plane in which they are flying crashes into a tree. The little soldier is sent to a hospital where he remains for the next 20 years, unaware of the changes that are taking place around him. He does not know, for instance, that Hynkel (also played by Chaplin) has become Dictator of Tomania, and is ruthlessly persecuting the jews with the help of his two ministers, Garbitsch and Herring.’
As Roger Ebert wrote in 2007:
‘Chaplin’s film, aimed obviously and scornfully at Hitler himself, could only have been funny, he says in his autobiography, if he had not yet known the full extent of the Nazi evil. As it was, the film’s mockery of Hitler got it banned in Spain, Italy and neutral Ireland. But in America and elsewhere, it played with an impact that, today, may be hard to imagine. There had never been any fictional character as universally beloved as the Little Tramp, and although Chaplin was technically not playing the Tramp in The Great Dictator, he looked just like him, this time not in a comic fable but a political satire.’
The speech marking the film’s climax has been described variously as self-indulgent on Chaplin’s part and as one of the greatest ever captured on film.
In an article for Far Out in 2021, Tom Taylor wrote:
‘The crescendo of this life-affirming picture is a soliloquy so spiritually profound that it seems to have been harnessed from the ether of history. It is tempting to dole out the cliché that “the speech is as rousing now as it was then” and there are various comments to that effect online, but quite frankly it is almost impossible to comprehend the way in which the movie must have tore out from the screen and seized the millions of Americans present in theatres with its unified cry of the commonality of man, and the imperative to help those in dire need across the ocean in Europe where millions were already mindlessly put to slaughter.’
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
The synopsis: ‘1944. Rural Spain. As Franco consolidates his brutal hold after years of civil war, lonely and dreamy Ofelia must come to terms with the cruelty around her. Living with her mother and adoptive father – a military officer under the Fascist government who is tasked with ridding last rebels from their area, Ofelia creates a fable, giving life to a secret inner world to help her cope with a world gone wrong.’
Written, directed and co-produced by Guillermo del Toro, this anti-fascist fairy tale pushes the notion of escapism to its limits. On one hand it could be read as a young girl’s dark fantasy, in which she discovers she needs to complete a series of tasks to gain immortality.
On the other, far bigger, almost gigantic, hand, it’s about the rampant fascism of Franco’s Spain – never more explicit than in Ofelia’s stepfather, Captain Vidal, a loathsome member of Spain’s Civil Guard and the embodiment of oppression. As the actor Sergi López said:
‘[Captain Vidal] is the most evil character I’ve ever played in my career. It is impossible to improve upon it; the character is so solid and so well written. Vidal is deranged, a psychopath who is impossible to defend. Even though his father’s personality marked his existence – and is certainly one of the reasons for his mental disorder – that cannot be an excuse. It would seem to be very cynical to use that to justify or explain his cruel and cowardly acts. I think it is great that the film does not consider any justification of fascism.’
Of course, that’s before even getting to the terrifying Pale Man, on whom del Toro has been quoted as saying:
‘The Pale Man represents all institutional evil feeding on the helpless. It’s not accidental that he is a) Pale b) a Man. He’s thriving now. These are Pale Man times.’
The film doesn’t – and can’t – hurtle towards a happy ending, but the message we’re left with is that disobedience works; care and consideration for others still matters; not everything has to turn to shit.
To Be or Not to Be (1942)
The Synopsis: During the German occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier’s efforts to track down a German spy.
Another black comedy that, like The Great Dictator, benefitted from a broad lack of knowledge about the full depth of depravity occurring in fascist Germany in the 1940s.
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, it stars Carole Lombard, one of the defining actresses of screwball comedy, who died tragically at 33, a month before it premiered.
The film was remade in 1983, starring Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft – a version that was seen as good, but not quite as good, as the original – not least because the war was long settled by then and the ‘good guys won, bad guys lost’ narrative well established.
The strength of Lubitsch’s version is that it’s poised on a knife edge, at a time when nobody knew what would happen next.
As Geoffrey O’Brien wrote in The Criterion Collection in 2013:
‘To Be or Not to Be did something rare, then or at any time, by interweaving farce and disaster in such a rigorously structured fashion as to elicit, in the very same scenes, genuine anxiety and a hilarity so acute that it has something like an ecstatic kick. For many, myself included, it is close to being the funniest film ever made […] But at every step, it keeps plainly in view […] the possibility of real terror, real soul-destroying cruelty, real suffering. The fear is real, and even though each emerging danger is deflected by the most ingenious comic solution, another danger soon enough takes its place.’
Z (1969)
The Synopsis: ‘During a speaking engagement coinciding with an appearance of the Bolshoi Ballet, pacifist Deputy Z., the target of a right-wing military conspiracy, is assassinated by […] reactionaries Vago and Yago, and Z.’s supporters are brutally beaten by thugs before indifferent police. When an autopsy discloses that Z. was not killed by a hit-and-run driver, but bludgeoned to death, the deputy’s supporters demand an investigation.’
This 1969 political thriller and winner of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar by Greek-born Costa-Gavras, is based, loosely, on the real-life assassination of the physician, parliamentarian, athlete and left-wing Greek activist Gregoris Lambrakis by right-wing extremists in 1963. The film, in fact, opens with the statement: ‘Any similarity to persons or events is deliberate.’
Not without (dark) humour, it’s shot in a gritty faux-documentary style, rattles along with action thriller pacing and lifts an enraged middle finger to the entanglement of right wing politics, the military and extremists i.e. fascism the world over.
Quoting Roger Ebert again:
‘The film Z is about […] the assassination […] of a leader of the political opposition in Greece. It is also about all the rest of them. For Americans, it is about the My Lai massacre, the killing of Fred Hampton, the Bay of Pigs. It is no more about Greece than The Battle of Algiers was about Algeria. It is a film of our time. It is about how even moral victories are corrupted. It will make you weep and will make you angry. It will tear your guts out.’
Come and See (1985)
Synopsis: ‘After finding an old rifle, a young boy joins the Soviet resistance movement against ruthless German forces and experiences the horrors of World War II.’
Director Elem Klimov’s final film, starring non-professional actors, is based partially on the 1971 novel Khatyn. It focuses on the German occupation of Belarus, as seen through the eyes of a teenager, Flyora. Klimov reportedly had to battle nearly a decade of censorship from the Soviet authorities before being allowed to produce the film.
The plot, though based in extremely disturbing truth, is in some ways secondary given the universal horrors the film evokes. A mix of realism and surrealism, with stunning cinematography, it leaves no doubts about the horrors of war and fascism. In short, it’s cinematically wonderful and emotionally devastating.
As Jim Schembri wrote for The Age:
‘Come and See is a stirring, unremittingly powerful war drama that has the rare double virtue of constantly engaging both the eye and the emotions […]. The film’s running time is about 144 minutes, but I assure you there’s not a dead minute in it. It is totally absorbing, often spellbinding.’
Tyler Banark wrote for Cinema Solace in 2021:
‘If you do watch Come and See, watch with caution, keep yourself together, and remember that it’ll come to an end. Because while on the surface, it is a draining movie to see, it has beauty and an excellent message to take away from it.’
Klimov said in a 2008 interview published in KINEMA:
‘To come right to the point, Come and See is both an antifascist film and an antiwar film. Although some have also implied that it is an anti-German film, too. This is not true. It was never meant to be an anti-German film. So I’ll emphasise it once more: it is an antifascist and an antiwar film. Another very important purpose in the making of that film was to talk about a human being. What is a human being all about? What are the limitations of a human being? What are the extremes to which a human being can be brought?
‘As Dostoevski once wrote: “A human being is a beast in you that you can face, and it faces you.” A human being under certain circumstances can discover in himself some horrible things. That he, as a human being, can fall so low. That is what I tried to depict in Come and See. And that’s why we set out to show in the film a human being near his limits. And sometimes even beyond his limits. To show just what is a human being. And such a task – these very questions – are the most important in the world of art.’
