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First They Came For...
Posted: Feb 21, 2008 in Movies
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"First They Came For..." is the title of local filmmaker Kate Chaplin's latest film, a short dealing with oppressive government forces and the power of the people to either rally and stand up for their freedom together, or to become passive and apathetic to the plight of others.
The film centers on a nameless man (Scott Ganyo of "Star Trek Vs. Batman") who narrates the film, detailing his apathy toward oppressed groups, and his eventual regret at not standing up them when he had the chance.
It's a very American film, touching on themes of justice, universal freedom from harassment, oppression and imprisonment by the government. Chaplin is not shy about the parallels she creates between the dystopic secret-police-like villains and our current government, making a film with classic themes with a lot of relevance today.
This short, which runs about 5 minutes, could easily be adapted into a full-length film, and has the potential to be an interesting one as well.
The film is well-constructed, sharply edited and engaging, though its short running time begs for more development. But for what it's attempting to be, a terse statement on not only the US government, but on its people as well, it is eerily and frighteningly effective.
The film can be seen at the Really Big Short Film Festival Saturday, Feb. 23 at the Indiana State Museum IMAX theater (the film screens in Block 2 beginning at 12:30 p.m.), and can be viewed on YouTube.
Great review of a powerful short film, Joe!
Derbra
I'm confused on how you think it matches up to current society. The closest American period to this type of behavior would be the FDR administration, with 110,000 Japanese Americans (or other Asian Americans, assumed to be Japanese) in concentration camps.
When you consider that a large number of cast and crew of this piece are US veterans, and at least one is still serving, it's a very promising statement about awareness and respect for freedom.
Specifically this film is a reflection of our current situation on two levels:
One, how our current government took upon itself to limit the freedoms of its citizen, i.e. wiretapping, holding prisoners illegally without cause and condoning removing freedoms from its citizens.
Two with public apathy of politics in general (though admittedly that is starting to change with the presidential elections coming up), and in the public allowing certain freedoms from certain groups of people simply on the basis of their status in a certain group (specifically the narration, "when they came for the gays, I didn't stand up because I wasn't gay." I see that as a direct correlation to American apathy on the part of some people, not caring about (or even agreeing with) restrictions placed on gays (for no other reason than because they're gay and they don't wish it) because they can't step into someone else's shoes, or they don't want to.
I do agree with you in that your interpretation of the piece is accurate as well, though. Awareness and respect for freedom is a large part of it, but I think the narration (and the poem the film is based on) goes deeper into the subject than just a general blanket statement about freedom.