Randy McDonald ([info]rfmcdpei) wrote,
@ 2008-10-27 23:31:00
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Entry tags:movie reviews, popular culture, reviews, violence

[BRIEF NOTE] On Battle Royale
I've just watched Battle Royale for the first time and the film is, as a friend would say, "beyond." The novel (perhaps a bit too dry) and the graphc novel (likely too many abnormally enlarged secondary sexual characteristics) didn't quite prepare me the actual sight of the bizarre eruption of violence into normalcy.

My most recurring thought was that of concern about the ambient mental climate of our world: Why does the plot of my generation's version of The Lord of the Flies pivot upon our elders' desire to put the one against the other in the name of ultraviolent character-building? At least The Lord of the Flies' chaos had the virtue of being Cold War-driven and self-generating. Millennial paranoia, I assume.




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[info]naitsirk
2008-10-28 07:20 am UTC (link)
I've never seen and never will see Battle Royale because I find the premise so utterly disturbing and depressing. Thing is, I could probably stand it in a historical, fantasy or other SF-setting, but when it's set in the *modern world, there's a squick factor that gets to me. I've noticed this with some other things too, stories set in the modern world, with elements that I would take for granted and accept in any other setting, disturb me horribly.

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[info]gyptis
2008-10-28 11:46 am UTC (link)
The The Lord of the Flies was written, in part, as a counter to the Imperial daring-do of R.M.Ballantyne's very popular Victorian book The Coral Island. Ballantyne's boys bring order, Christianity and stiff-upper-lips to the natives. Of course.

Golding's work succeeds in popping this pomposity. Battle Royale adds nothing to the genre. I saw some of this film a few years ago, and would agree with members of the Japanese Government who declared it to be "crude and tasteless".

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[info]talktooloose
2008-10-28 04:18 pm UTC (link)
I loved Battle Royale. I would add to your clever analysis that they adults are also creating (and, theoretically profiting on) reality TV of their own rape of their children. Disturbing and essential.

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