Sin Nombre is a 2009 drama about a young Honduran woman who is in search of greener pastures in the United States. She travels with her family via stowaways on a train but her trek up north is complicated by the arrival of Willy, a kind-hearted Mexican gang member looking for an escape. As a work of social observation, Sin Nombre artfully balances being a well-told message movie without becoming too preachy. It's true to its characters, and lets them tread lightly through the injustices in their path. Those looking to wade into the illegal immigration debate should never lose sight of the fact that we're talking about human beings. Hopefully watching Sin Nombre will help cement that fact.
Good Night, and Good Luck is a 2005 historical drama, shot in crisp and claustrophobic black and white. It tells the story of veteran journalist Edward R. Murrow who became a lightning rod of controversy during his harsh criticism of Senator Joseph McCarthy's famed "Red Scare". During the film, Murrow takes on the red-baiting Senator (using real footage) to convey the importance of media responsibility and the need for vocal dissent. Good night, and Good Luck is highly recommended for those interested in journalism and the role real, hard boiled journalism should play in our lives.
Bob Roberts is a black comedy that, at the time of its release (1992) was an aggressive if exaggerated take down of right-wing politics. Today, the cutting satire, largely provided by Tim Robbin's title character can be seen as a vivid and rather tame representation of right-wing politics today. It's all more or less there; reactionary, barely cognizant policies, a causal relationship with the truth, lionization of the working class while dismantling institutions meant to protect them. Yep, it's all there.
More than just a work of biographical film-making, Selma (2014) works as an illustration of the sacrifices that were made in the long, arduous fight for civil rights. The film doesn't just portray Martin Luther King Jr. with considerable depth but it also has the intelligence to dig deep into the organization and execution of the famous Selma March. It's more or less a film of strategy, of will, and of sacrifice, all for the sake of peaceful demonstration and positive change.
Politics is everywhere. Perhaps one day when people stop making laws that unduly burden minority groups, we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Until then movies like Pariah (2011); the simple story of a young black woman coming out to her family, will be as political as the House of Commons. Adepero Oduye stars as Alike, a teenager with conflicting identities and desires to be both a sexually fulfilled adult and accepted by her parents. The film takes an interesting turn with the introduction of Bina (Aasha Davis) who is seemingly going through the same struggles.
Of course if classic film noir is more you flavor, the far-back year of 1949 had its own bellwether of runaway populism in the form of All the King's Men, based on a novel by Robert Penn Warren. The film follows the rise and fall of a Governor (played with appropriate bluster by Broderick Crawford) who rose from obscurity by railing against corruption. He then proceeds to strong-arm, bribe and blackmail all who oppose him and his quest for power; sound familiar? While the film has aged slightly, it is still a world better than the 2006 remake. Don't seek out that trash, seek out this Academy Award winner instead.
Girlhood is another one of those morally complex and dark films that sticks into your brain like a shard of glass. The film tells the tale of the young, impressionable Marieme (Karidja Toure), an African-French teenager who joins a gang in a rough neighborhood outside Paris. Much like Pariah, the film attempts to examine questions of identity in an increasingly desensitized world. Unlike Pariah however, the film encompasses themes of group identity and the damaging nature of stereotypes. While decidedly grim, the film's very existence plots the lives of its protagonist with uninhibited realism.
When all else fails, you can always go to the classics; and Do the Right Thing (1989) is very much a classic and required viewing for all film fanatics. More than that however, Do the Right Thing is also a stunning cultural achievement that dilutes the quiet discordance of American race relations into a single sweltering day in Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy neighborhood. Spike Lee's expressionistic mis en scene prods and pokes at the subject with unsurpassed vigor; all the way up to the film's climactic coda.
A quick glance at The Propaganda Game (2015) may have some thinking this film may not be the best fit for a list such as this. It takes the guise of a documentary about North Korea, shot with the express permission of the North Korean government under the impression the film would paint them in a desirable light. Filmmaker Alvaro Longoria purposely used propaganda aesthetics to shoot the Hermit Kingdom "...in a way that hasn't been shown before: as beautiful as possible." Then the film proceeds to use those very visuals and the apologist words of Official Foreign Ministry Agent Alejandro Cao de Benos to undercut North Korea's supposed grandeur and superiority. It's a clever work of media manipulation and if anyone wanted an inside track on the identifiers of dictatorship, look no further than The Propaganda Game.
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) is a purposely polemic take on racism, immigration and homosexuality told within the context of Britain's embrace of Thatcherism. The film tells the story of Omar (Gordon Warnecke) and his uncle Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey) who open up a laundry shop in South London's rapidly changing Battersea area. One night, Omar is attacked by skinheads led by his former childhood friend Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis). They then rekindle their friendship and begin a torrid romance in secret to tragic results.
While some may rightfully assert this Persian horror romance is more a criticism of Iranian social mores, we shouldn't count A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) out as an effective examination of feminism and generational rifts. The film follows a lonesome vampire (Sheila Vand) who quietly feeds on the denizens of a rural industrial town. She wonders through the streets and finds the youthful Arash (Arash Marandi) whose vibrancy and kind nature she's drawn to. Underneath the film's elusive atmosphere lies some very potent digs on hypocrisy and misogyny.
Matewan (1987) certainly carries its old-school liberal flag loudly and proudly. The film utilizes the sudden arrival of a union organizer (Chris Cooper) to an embattled mining town as a conduit to explore the virtues of solidarity among the rural working class. To that end, Matewan can be seen as a bit of a compromise movie; one that both explores the erosion of goodwill of this election cycles "forgotten voters" and admonishes the liberal embrace of globalism that more or less screwed them over. It also bolsters a vision of the future that is tailored by unity and solidarity instead of division and suspicion; best represented by lawman Sid Hatfield's (David Strathairn) change of character.
Sentenced Home (2006) is a little seen but powerful documentary that catalogues the unfortunate fates of three Cambodian nationals threatened by an uncaring immigration system. Raised as Americans in Seattle, Loeun, Kim and Many are forced to confront the youthful indiscretions of their past that put them at risk for deportation to a country they barely know. It's a humanizing and noble little doc that focuses more on the psychological and moral implications of the immigration debate.
Disguised as a light and delirious macabre comedy, The Executioner (1963) is actually a pretty damning indictment of the idle politically amorality of Franco Era Spain. The film follows a quarrelsome undertaker as he is harangued into becoming an executioner in exchange of a comfortable bourgeois living. Like most dark comedies, half the fun of The Executioner is watching the main character squirm. Though beneath all the goofball humor there's a lot being said about culpability in an age of disengagement and authoritarian rule.
Incident at Oglala (1992) is an infuriating look at the circumstances surrounding Native American activist Leonard Peltier's trial and conviction of murder. More than just a straightforward doc on crime and punishment, Oglala also focuses on the history of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and its profound if understated effects on tribal/U.S. relations. Those bemoaning the silence of the Standing Rock protests will take no heart in knowing all of this has already happened before. But if we know our history perhaps maybe, just maybe, we won't repeat it...again.
Most of the films on this list come with a little bit of satire and a lot of insight. Yet when it comes to a filthy, burning-bridges, f**k-it attitude, The Toxic Avenger (1984) has everyone just about beat. Seen by some as a quasi-pro-environment film, The Toxic Avenger and its titular roid-raged monster hero are best described as an anti-everything kind of cultural icon. In the film a scrawny nerd working at a health club becomes the victim of a violent prank that transforms him into a hideous, radioactive revenge beast. He then proceeds to clean up crime in increasingly brutal ways culminating in a city-wide revolt. This movie is angry, stupid, nihilistic and revolting...remind you of anyone?
Martin Luther King Jr. once said 11am on Sundays is "the most segregated hour in this nation." A Time for Burning, a 1966 documentary commissioned by the Lutheran Church seems to want to take that notion and turn it on its head. The film follows the proposed desegregation of an Omaha church by a forward thinking white pastor. The results are quite tragic; even more so when you consider the voracity of this kind of hatred still exists today.
A Separation (2011) is another one of those movies chosen for this list simply because it has the temerity to exists. It's an engrossing and ultimately harrowing tale about normal people living complicated lives in a contemporary urban setting. That setting; Tehran, Iran and the people involved are just like you and I. What results is a movie that is unabashedly humanistic in its approach of "the other," in ways that defy description. Seek this one out for sure. I have not met a person yet who has seen this film and wasn't moved.
But I'm a Cheerleader (1999) is a fun, outlandish and garish satire about gender and sexual identity that pits a reluctant cheerleader (Natasha Lyonne) against a "pray-the-gay-away" type camp for teens. The results are simultaneously hilarious and quietly revolutionary. Seek this one out if for no other reason than it borrows heavily from John Water's wheelhouse of tastelessness and adds a soupcon of efficacious cringe-comedy.
Okay last one about living a day as "the other" but in fairness this one really counts. The Visitor touches on so many things that are at the heart of today's fear-based politics. It stands on the crossroads of immigration and islamophobia while also dealing with the subtext of isolation and cross-cultural communication. The Visitor (2007) is a simple story about a lonely widower named Walter (Richard Jenkins) who travels to New York for a conference. He ambles back to his rented Manhattan townhouse to find a young unmarried couple who apparently rented from a third-party swindler. Walter reluctantly lets them stay and the three begin to slowly form a kinship that's tested when Walter discovers they're both illegals (one from Senegal, the other from Syria).
The Salt of the Earth (1954) is infamous for being the only blacklisted film in U.S. history. It's loosely based on the 1951 Empire Zinc Company strike which pitted mine bosses against a largely Mexican-American workforce. Salt of the Earth is regarded as a must-see for film fans for several reasons: first, it was famously directed by Herbert J. Biberman, a blacklisted writer who refused to succumb to Communist witch hunts. Secondly, the events of the film (and the actual strike), cajoled the women of the community to picket on behalf of the men. Thus Salt of the Earth is seen as among the first films to explore feminism in a social and political context.
While Salt of the Earth may be infamous to film buffs, The Invisible War (2012) is arguably more relevant to today's women. Through several interviews and interspersed first person testimonies by veterans, The Invisible War paints an excoriating picture of military sexual trauma and its tolerance throughout the armed forces. Director Kirby Dick examines the toxic culture of obfuscation and denial that facilitated over 100,000 cases of trauma and only 244 convictions of rape. An astounding and sad statistic when you consider even three-star generals aren't immune to sexual assault.
The Tin Drum (1979) may not be a pleasant watch but given the context of rising hate crimes and actual f**king Nazis coming out of the woodwork, its about time we got a movie that's a loud, aggressive sirens warning. David Bennett plays a literal siren; a young boy who refuses to grow up amid Nazi era decadence and moral ineptitude. Miraculously, Oskar never does grow up and remains a five-year-old boy banging on his tin drum and screaming every time he sees hypocrisy. It's a callously absurd movie (and also a long one) but ultimately I think The Tin Drum worth at least one viewing.
The Spook Who Sat By the Door is arguably one of the most polemic films to ever be released in the United States. So serious is its perceived danger that the FBI suppressed its release and rumor has it they broke into the studio vaults to burn the negatives. The film forces the issue of black militancy and makes a persuasive argument for guerilla warfare against white power structures and institutions. It follows the disillusionment of a black CIA operative who quits the company to start his own cell of urban Chicago militants. The results prove scarily effective.
A Question of Silence (1982) at times feels like one's being slowly and painfully disconnected from the Borg. Three women, who have never spoken to each other, brutally murder the owner of a boutique. The murder sends shock waves through the legal community and psychiatrist (Cox Habbema) is brought in to make sense of a seemingly senseless crime. The film doesn't so much spoon-feed facts and plot details but rather uses intuition to shuffle willing audience members towards its unexpected and radical modus aprendi. While nothing is necessarily gained by the end (other than a winking solidarity), the film's full-frontal assault on patriarchy is eerie, lucid and incredibly necessary. I can't think of better film that better opposes everything our current commander and chief stands for.
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