Culture and reviews

For many trapped at home, quarantine is an opportunity to broaden horizons. We publish part two of our list of some of the best political films to occupy the time during the lockdown.

For many trapped at home, quarantine is an opportunity to broaden horizons. We publish here a list of some of the best political films to occupy the time during the lockdown.

Role-playing computer game Disco Elysium has won plaudits for its political plot and subversive structure. It’s nihilistic outlook, however, reflects the pessimism of the past – not the revolutionary desires of today’s younger generation.

Sci-fi franchise Star Trek is back on TV screens with the new CBS series ‘Picard’. The show’s bleak vision of the future is a far cry from the confident optimism of earlier incarnations. This reflects today’s impasse of the system.

Uncut Gems features Adam Sandler as Manhatten jeweler and gambling addict Howard Ratner, a character who embodies capitalism. The film acts as an indictment of the short-sightedness of capitalism.

Parasite, a recent film by South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho, depicts the brutality of life under capitalism, showing how poverty forces people to struggle against one another to get by.

 Disney’s latest episode from the Star Wars universe shows what Hollywood has become: yet another monopoly-dominated industry, where originality and creativity are sacrificed on the altar of profit.

Ken Loach’s latest film depicts the day-to-day life of a working-class family struggling to get by in temporary employment, mirroring the struggles of many workers in the UK today. The blame for this scourge lies with capitalism.

The new Joker film reimagines the classic villain as the victim of a system that abandons the mentally ill and leaves people to languish in a manufactured poverty. Capitalism is shown to be the real villain of Gotham city.

Guy Standing’s new book examines how our common assets have been stolen from us and turned into sources of profit for the rich. He suggests this process is a result of bad political choices – but it is inherent to the capitalist system.

The recent BBC documentary “Broke” provides a sober reflection on the savage effects of auserity, introducing us to hard working people struggling to get by. Despite its powerful message, however, it provides no solution to the crisis of austerity.

Edgar Sait-Jones reviews the latest critically-acclaimed series from HBO, which looks at the dramatic events surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion in 1986. This laid bare the faults of the Stalinist bureaucracy.