Catherine Tate's spirited performance is one of the few bright spots in a film that from almost every other perspective is just so totally wrong. The story of a teacher from Bingley, West Yorkshire, who transports his family to the German Democratic Republic (better known as East Germany) to live in a communist utopia, only to discover that the worker's paradise is nothing of the sort, seems hopelessly dated from the get-go, not simply because of the topic, but because the producers seem to be willfully ignorant of the last 20 years of European history.
There is nothing immoral about making a comedy about life under intolerable political regimes - after all, one only has to recall Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's 2006 The Lives of Others to realize the darkly comic potential that films set in such societies can provide. Unfortunately the makers of Mrs Ratcliff's Revolution are not only ignorant of history, both political and cinematic, but also seem to be uncertain exactly what sort of movie they are trying to make. If the whole thing had been made as off-the-wall broad comedy, the film might just have passed muster, but attempts to give the situation a moral dimension make the film utterly unacceptable.
As for the performances, they are all solid if relatively uninspired. The one exception is Catherine Tate, whose Mrs Ratcliffe, a sensible type of woman whose British grit is brought out by the absurd situations created by a world dominated by secret police and communist ideology, is quite well realized. Unfortunately the producers gave the film a big injection of arch humor that seems to have come directly from the Carry On movies of the early 1970s. At any moment you expect Kenneth Williams to come on wearing a garter strap and going "Oooooh!" He doesn't, and more's the pity, as this might just provide some relief from this ham-fisted mess of a movie.
Instead, the moments of comedy are inter-cut with awful attempts at drama. The performers struggle manfully with the terrible material, but the days that you can make light of escaping over the Berlin wall by balloon or turning children into spies against their parents have well and truly gone. Audiences know too much about the horrors of totalitarian regimes and their efforts to keep their people in a state of terror to find this sort of thing even remotely funny.
Enough talent has been wasted in this mess of movie, don't waste your time as well.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
RSS