MAOS LAST DANCER...and some thoughts on the age of content

In the genre of a film tied to real life events... a film both dramatic and historical..with a love interest, social and political ties, and beautiful scenes - see Maos Last Dancer.   A good movie, not the BEST movie but still good.   In the vein of a total non sequiter, The Truman Show was a totally a good movie, about the insidious way that capitalism destroys individuality, and the way that we are controlled in ways we do not even realize. Not that I am meaning to discuss politics. but according to feminists in the know, "everything is political," and the "personal is always the political."  Adrienne Rich of course.  So while "I am and am not" discussing politics in a round about kind of way by discussing Mao's Last Dancer, I am discussing politics as a way of getting to some type of truth.  And since films hold a mirror to the culture and the world in which we live, it is fitting that we discuss what the masses of people are watching, as well as producing. (In a Marxist kind of way)

So...back to The Truman Show (I am hoping that you find this sequence of apparent non linear thinking (and scattered thinking endearing): The movie was not only a political indictment, but was a metaficitional film depicting a metafictional reality (Such as a John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, maybe even a Nabokov).  The Truman Show was also a film indicative of the age when we had the luxury of indulging in metafiction. But the alarms have gone off. Metafictional romance is a hobby that this age and century (and planetary awareness) cannot afford to dabble in. We are, without a doubt, out of the age of metafiction.  It is too much of a narcissistic indulgence in form over content.  The time and space we are living in is the age of content and consciousness.

  We are out of the age defining the outer edges of reality, out of the age of looking askance at the world.  And while this post has ostensibly nothing to do with THE TRUMAN SHOW, and I did not begin this post about THE TRUMAN SHOW, I am bringing it up to draw the contrast between the age we are moving into, and the age we have left.  MAOS LAST DANCER is a movie depicting the age we are living in RIGHT NOW.  We are living in a world looking to reconnect with the soul, with passion, and with love.  The time is now and now is the time...as the saying goes. And I am not sure where T S Eliot fits in here, but I know he does. So, to bring this post in a self conscious kind of way back to the beginning, I will tell you that MAO'S LAST DANCER is a movie.  A movie of content, love, and passion...which defies the intellect... unless it is dissected in a film course about the trajectory of modern cultural analysis.  We will just say that it is one of the BEST movies I have seen in the last week.  So, those are my words on the best....by Beth!  Namaste.....again.