Les Brigades du Tigre (2006)

“This dump looks like an anarchist hangout.”

I’ve become used to the overwhelmingly negative and inaccurate portrayals of anarchists in film and books, but Les Brigades du Tigre (The Tiger Brigades) is a first–well a first for me at least. This French film directed by Jerome and Francois Cornuau is ostensibly about the first motorised police force, and it portrays anarchist Jules Bonnot in a favorable but still wildly inaccurate light.

Somehow after reading Richard Parry’s account of The Bonnot Gang  I can’t help but think that if Bonnot could see this cinematic version of part of his life, he’d be really annoyed. But then again perhaps he’d have a good laugh. Well whatever Bonnot’s reaction would be to this glossy portrayal of the French Illegalist as some sort of latter day Robin Hood, the film still ignores the reality of what Bonnot and his fellow anarchists were all about.

Here’s the plot:

Jules Bonnot (Jacques Gamblin) and a group of fellow anarchists knock off a bank delivery showering money in the streets while they make off with a secret coded ledger. This ledger assumes vast importance, and while the first mobile police brigade searches for Bonnot, something just doesn’t add up for Commissaire Valentin (Clovis Cornillac). Valentin has a soft spot for anarchists noting that they “aren’t like crooks. They’re quiet, sober, don’t beat women.” Valentin and a handful of other policemen become involved in the hunt for Bonnot, and they soon become aware that there’s skullduggery afoot.

The film uses the real-life character of Bonnot and some of his actions and then spins the facts sending the truth off the deep end. For example, scenes depict the police surrounding Bonnot in a farmhouse at Choisy-le-Roi. While this much is true, the film depicts Bonnot as killed when the police dynamite and storm the building. In reality, he was still barely alive but shot to death by police at the scene. The film also depicts Bonnot’s body being carried out with honour–ceremonial style, shoulder high when the reality was that the mob gathered at the site wanted to lynch Bonnot.

With Bonnot out of the picture (literally) the film concentrates on the policemen, and they become the heroes of the piece. There are a few real names here: Octave Garnier (Marc Robert) and Raymond Callemin (Pierre Berriau) and Jaures (Andre Marcon). Thrown into the blend is a Russian anarchist who shoots up with narcotics, and a Russian princess (Diane Kruger) who’s an anarchist on the side and Bonnot’s lover whenever she gets a chance.

Of course, it’s all extremely fanciful with its swordplay, crazed Russians, acid-throwing and torture thrown in for good measure. I had a good laugh at the way anarchists fold and yield information to Valentin whenever he asks a question. But overall I was puzzled more than anything else by the film’s portrayal of Bonnot. Author Richard Parry makes the point that given the social conditions of the times many of the French working class identified with Bonnot and his Illegalist decision to seize what he wanted. But the film seems to feel very comfortable creating degrees of French heroes as opposed to the Russian Nasties. Perhaps this explains why Bonnot is depicted as someone who wants to ‘right’ society by exposing corruption. Ultimately, however, the Russians are the villains of the piece with the French bureaucrats and bankers right next to them.

This film is an adaptation of a popular French television series that aired in the 70s.

Anarchy TV (1998)

“I’m sick of paying taxes so you can sit around and play counterculture.”

The comedy film Anarchy TV directed by Jonathan Blank pits five anarchists and a prostitute against a religious wanker in a struggle for Public Access TV.

When the film begins a group of five anarchists manage their own Public Access channel called Anarchy TV, lampooning religion and government with a series of parody advertisements and programmes. For example, the programming includes a parody version of Jeopardy. One of the questions to pick from is “Conspiracy Theories” and the game show prize is to collect as many Prozac pills as possible.

The five anarchists are:
Natalie (Jessica Hecht), the daughter of a hypocritical and sinister TV evangelist
Jerry (Jonathan Penner), Natalie’s lover
Frank (Matt Winston) techno-phile and conspiracy theorist
Katie (Moon Unit Zappa), the most serious of the bunch
Sid (Dweezil Zappa)

Outraged by the content of Anarchy TV and to ‘protect’ public morals, Natalie’s father, the corrupt Reverend Wright (Alan Thicke), buys the station, disowns Natalie and turfs the anarchists out of the building. The anarchist group attempts traditional, legal methods of protest and end up in jail for their efforts. In jail they meet bubbly prostitute Tiffany (Tamayo Otsuki). Entranced with the anarchist message, she joins the group.

 
After the failure of legal protest, the group decides to move to Direct Action. Storming the station, they take a newscaster hostage and begin broadcasting their message on “God’s Station” on the “Christian Unity Network.” Mink Stole appears in a small role as Stephanie’s employer: (”schoolteachers can’t appear in a nudie carnival.”)

The anarchists look like a bunch of yuppies for the most part. Tiffany ends up being the most radical of the group in many ways, but that’s mainly because she’s a strong character and not afraid to take her clothes off: “Hi, I’m Tiffany. I’m here with the cast of Anarchy TV. We all met in jail. It was my 8th bust for solicitation. Prostitution is illegal. I thought this was a capitalist country. If some horny bastard wants to pay me 100 bucks to jack off all over my face who the hell is the government to interfere in my business.”

Tiffany’s actions on Anarchy TV put her into direct conflict with Katie, but her tactics also gain an interested audience. It’s a sad yet bitterly funny comment on society that nudity is one of the few things that can wake people from their stupor.

Since this is a comedy, there isn’t too much serious here, but the film illustrates the powerful and toxic power relationships between established institutions. Anarchy TV’s broadcasted parodies manage to be accurate and bitingly funny at the same time. One of Reverend Wright’s religious programmes is “Countdown to Armageddon” with the “top 7 deadly signs that the world is coming to an end.” One of those 7 signs is that “sodomites are given equal rights as citizens.” When Anarchy TV takes over and starts broadcasting parody programming, some of the audience can’t even tell the difference. Plus the film also shows Anarchy TV’s audience reaction–and this ranges from sloth to outrage.

Most of the anarchists’ message unfortunately seems to congeal around the rhetoric of democracy and liberty–although one scene shows Katie smashing a vending machine and after gauging the disapproval of the group, she states “Property is Theft”–a phrase that seems to be thrown in for authenticity. Ultimately Anarchy TV  isn’t about anarchy at all; it’s more about the Bill of Rights and the erosion of the U.S. Constitution. The film’s subtext, however, is that our television sets transmit meaningless rubbish, conditioning us into herd behaviour, fear and complacency. And I can’t argue with that.

Hop (2002)

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to blow anything up.”

Apparently the salient characteristic of an anarchist is the irrepressible desire to blow things up. Well at least that’s the case in the film Hop from director Dominque Standaert. The story revolves around Justin (Kalomba Mboyi) a twelve-year-old illegal immigrant from Burundi who lives with his father Dieudonne (Ansou Diedhiou) in Belgium. After a minor fracas with the law stemming from a dispute with a neighbour over his cable television line, Dieudonne is arrested, questioned and subsequently deported by police to the Congo. Meanwhile Justin goes on the lam and takes refuge with anarchist Frans Misonne (Jan Decleir).

Frans at first plans to hand the boy right back to the police, but then when his female acquaintance Gerda (Antje de Boeck) objects, Frans allows the boy to stay. When Frans learns that Justin’s father has been deported, he comes up with a plan to negotiate for the father’s return to Belgium. Dreaming up the name, the Anarchistic Pygmy Revolutionary Front, Frans’s plan is to leave a dummy explosive on a monument, threatening to use the real thing if their demands aren’t met.

As the film develops, it’s revealed that Frans served time for an explosion in which three people were killed. Frans, who was the bomb expert in the Pressure Cooker Group, set the bomb and then called in a warning to police. The police however, failed to evacuate the building, and three people were killed. Frans subsequently served time–a remarkably short period of time as it turns out, and this is explained by the skill of Frans’s lawyer.

Frans and Gerda are the only Belgiums willing to help Justin, and while their comradeship is touching, the portrayal of anarchist Frans is problematic. On the one hand, he could have been any old hippie or any old radical, but the necessity of placing dynamite in the plot evidently and preposterously called for the creation of an anarchist. As one of the Pressure Cooker Group, he’s seen as someone who’s responsible for the deaths of three innocent bystanders. He keeps a secret stash of dynamite in his remote home and refuses to clean out his cesspit (an outhouse that serves as a toilet). Furthermore in its portrayal of Frans, the film doesn’t bother to explain any anarchist principles–even though Frans’s house is loaded with piles of books, pamphlets etc. Nor do we ever discover why Frans was running around Belgium with pressure cookers loaded with dynamite in the first place. Also, at the beginning of the film, in spite of the fact that he’s supposed to be an anarchist, his first reaction is to hand over Justin to the “authorities” and it’s only later in the film that he refuses to cooperate with the police–and this is a bit late since he’s already told the police where the boy can be found. Perhaps he cooperates because Justin is running around with a stash of dynamite–although the film doesn’t make the motive behind Frans’s cooperation clear. So we are left with a stereotype complete with the obligatory tendency to violent irresponsible action created for the purposes of the film.

Hop really has some interesting ideas, but the plot is extremely fanciful. The police who arrest Dieudonne are portrayed as rather cruel and deceptive, but later in the film, the Belgium equivalent of a SWAT team, at first rather sinister and threatening, are buffoons when pitted against the savvy 12 year old. Hop is visually a beautiful film, shot digitally in black and white. The plot addresses some serious, timely questions–the morality of allowing immigrants to sneak into the country in order to provide cheap labour, and the ethics of separating a child from a parent. The film’s title refers to a strategic shift of power between various groups, and the plot provides a few stories of how the Hop may be conducted, and then shows by example. Interestingly, it’s Justin’s fellow countrymen who manage to pull a Hop on the Belgium power structure, and this is accomplished in a very sly, slick manner–without explosives. However, the film stoops to the typical obligatory perpetuation of anarchist stereotypes–in this case–heavy on dynamite and out-of-control cesspits.

In Dutch and French with subtitles.

Land and Freedom (1995)

“Revolutions are contagious.”

In 1936, unemployed working class labourer, Dave Carr (Ian Hart) attends a Communist meeting in Liverpool and is recruited to fight the Fascists in Spain. He heads out with little idea where he is going, but with his Communist party card in hand, he soon meets up with a loosely banded detachment of the POUM militia group. The POUM organisation was a Marxist Communist union that formed an alliance with FAI/CNT Spanish Anarchists with the common goal of defeating renegade fascist general Franco.

The militia live in rough camps, lack weapons, and engage in a type of trench warfare with the fascists. Dave’s adventures include the liberation of a fascist-held village, and a slow tender romance that simmers with fellow militia member, Blanca (Rosana Pastor). At first Dave is quite enthusiastic about his involvement in the war. To him, this is “socialism in action.”

Dave’s disillusionment sets in when the POUM militias come under Stalinist control. With Stalin supporting the Communist Party of Spain, the militias are ordered to accept new rules. The women–who’ve fought alongside the men–are ordered to become either nurses or cooks. In spite of the fact that new weapons are promised, nothing appears. The militia members are divided by conflicting opinions–some seeing that the militia is now effectively de-fanged, join the Stalinist International Brigade, but other members stay faithful to the militia alliance. Land and Freedom documents Stalin’s betrayal of the POUM organization and their allies the Anarchists–soon POUM and the Anarchists (who’ve made some significant military advances) are under attack by the Stalinists and the Republican army. The Stalinists shut down the POUM newspapers and arrest some of their leaders. Instead of fighting the fascists, the parties who are supposed to be allied against Franco, are fighting each other. It’s the old divide and conquer strategy–but this time the Stalinists effectively divide the Anarchists and the Marxists and squash them–betraying the revolution, and betraying Spain. The film makes it quite clear that Marxism is not the same thing as Stalinism, and that the Spanish Civil War was a war within a war. There’s one great scene when Dave–fighting with the International Brigade-is holed up on one side of the street shooting at a group of Anarchists barricaded on the other side of the street. Insults are shouted from each side and then Dave exchanges comments with a British fighter from Manchester. They ask each other what they are doing there, and each man answers “dunno.” It is this event that causes Dave to cease fighting with the International Brigade and return to the militia.

Land and Freedom is first and foremost a political film–the romance between Dave and Blanca is never forced or even central to the plot. The era portrayed by the film is a complicated subject, and this Ken Loach film does an incredible job of putting large political ideas into an understandable format for the average viewer. One scene, for example, portrays the arguments that take place between villagers following the village’s liberation from the fascists. Some of the villagers wish to divide up the land immediately and begin collectivism (one of the goals of the newly elected democratic government that Franco intended to squash). The argument whether or not to begin collectivism illustrates the different arguments that the villagers have on the subject, and this scene also includes information regarding England and France’s refusal to sell weapons to the Spanish republic–even though it was a well-known fact that Franco was receiving support from Germany and Italy.

Dave is a marvelous character–an everyman who “leaves Liverpool with a daft romantic idea” that’s trammeled by political realities. Ian Hart’s low-key acting style is perfect for this role. We know that Dave’s disillusionment is complete when he rips up his Communist party card. Ultimately–the film is an avowal of the ongoing struggles of the working classes. Land and Freedom is an important political film, and anyone even remotely interested should dig out a copy of this buried film. It’s informative, but it’s also an excellent, excellent film. Well done, Ken Loach.

What to Do in Case of Fire (2001)

“They are politically misguided and sexually depraved.”

“We breathed in the same stuff as those anarchists.”

This lively German film begins in Berlin 1987 with footage of clashes between the German police and anarchists. Fast forward 13 years to 2000 when a bomb explodes in an empty building. Two people are injured in the blast, and a police hunt begins for those responsible. The bomb is analyzed and its construction places it within the period 1984-1988. Manowsky (Klaus Lowitsch) a veteran policeman who specialized in subversives during that time period is called in to solve the case. Manowsky begins digging back through lists of subversives from the 80s and during a police raid in a squat in notorious Machnow Street, a large amount of material is seized from two anarchists-Tim (Til Schweiger) and Hotte (Martin Feifel).

The police don’t know it, but they’ve accidentally managed to seize evidence that will identify and convict all the members of Group 36. The members of this anarchist collective, unfortunately, foolishly took souvenir footage of some of their exploits, and Tim and Hotte realize it’s just a matter of time before the police examine the film and track them all down. Back in the 80s, the group consisted of six comrades-four males and 2 females who shared the squat in Machnow Street. Only Tim and Hotte are still true to their anarchist beliefs, and the other four members have been recuperated by capitalist society to one degree or another. Tim and Hotte, who have no contact with the former members of the collective in years, initially, plan to flee to Poland, but instead, they decide to remain behind, and warn their former comrades.

The former members of the collective have various reactions to seeing Tim and Hotte again. Terror (Matthias Matschke) is now a lawyer, Nele (Nadja Uhl) is a single mother, Flo (Doris Schretzmayer) is affluent and about to get married, and Maik (Sebastian Blomberg) is an extremely wealthy advertising executive, considered a bit of a rebel by the business types who surround him. These four would rather forget the past, but with a criminal case looming before them, they can’t. In fact, since these four have `new lives’ (to one extent or another), they actually have far more to lose than Tim and Hotte, but at the same time, now they’re `respectable’, they seem unlikely to plan and participate in a raid on the fortified police barracks.

Many resentments simmer beneath the surface of the relationships of these six ex-collective members. Will they be able to work together to seize back the incriminating film? Tim and Hotte both feel abandoned by their former friends, and the film emphasizes the connection between the people they used to be and the people they’ve become. Maik, the most affluent of the six, seems the most appalled by the conditions of the squat, and he can hardly believe that he once lived there with his friends. The four recuperated anarchists (Terror, Nele, Flo, and Maik) don’t particularly want to address the moral shift of their movement from anarchism, and the implication seems to be that they’ve “moved on” from their youthful enthusiasm and energy, and simply given up the struggle. Ironically, the group’s old nemesis, Manowsky, has a grudging respect for those who didn’t ’sell out’ and this supplies the film with a surprisingly-although slightly unbelievable ending. In German with subtitles What to Do In Case of Fire is directed by Gregor Schnitzler.