michaelberanek275

Very professionally produced film using a mixture of testimony from people involved in the events, including a policeman, and of dramatised segments with actors playing the present-day witnesses. It's a mixture of informative and detailed documentary and exciting spy thriller. It was inspiring to see the courage of the young working class Brits, mostly communists, or socialists, willing to risk imprisonment and torture at the hands of the apartheid state in solidarity with the cause of freedom for black South Africans. There's a great use of mainstream cinematic method - for instance I had no idea I'd be quite so impressed and excited by the sight of a set of exploding ANC leaflet-bombs after such a great build-up of ticking-time tension. The London Recruits were only a few score in total, but they played a role disproportionate to their small number in rebuilding the once 'smashed' underground resistance when naive activists were decimated or in exile, making cunning use of the regime's prejudices about colour. The kind of historical international solidarity testified to here encourages us to keep the flame of liberation alive for people today in Latin America, and of course for Palestine.

Unforgiven is not a classic Western, I dare say not half as 'fun' for casual fans of the classic genre-- it's more a graveside deconstruction, or a truly modern evolution of a tired form. Eastman uses the Western mythos to study human nature, in particular the consequences of violence, and the moral ambiguity in real people, whether they be called heroes or villains. I'm not sure I can see an old Western now at all!

More and more contemporary movies dabble with the genre. Some very well, like Bone Tomahawk (2015) - a great Kurt Russell period horror, and others e.g. Where Kevin Costner plays another a modern last-legs cowboy of vengeance in thriller Let Him Go (2020). Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) sets out to subvert the genre, but Clint Eastwood in this movie from over 20 years ago proved himself the original prophet...

The best line in Unforgiven comes from Clint Eastwood's protagonist, the sad and ambigous Bill Munny, which works to obscure the memory of Dirty Harry to barely a shadow...

"It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have."

A deeply humane film deliberately fragmented into interlocking timelines and fantasy excursions not unlike in some ways Crash (2004) except here there the intensely focused study of human issues like sexual violence, poverty, family disinitegt, social aspiration etc centres on one day in Havana, Cuba, 2016.

Here the mundanity, distress and ugliness of situations is transformed by the fantastical imagination of the titular character - in a way that may challenge the viewer as to what is real or not. There is a lot of sadness, much dark humour, violent moments, but the winsome cast and the great photography make otherwise tawdry settings sparkle with magic realism. It's an unconventional film that manages to portray a lot of reality and prescient social issues though the creative kalideopspic visions of one small totally marginalized character. It seems to suggest we could all benefit from Nelsito's perspective in a way, as we are all faced with everyday failure and loss in some way. It also seems like a perfectly plausible snapshot of contemporary Cuban life for many people. A fascinating and thought-provoking work.