Douglas Mercer
January 9 2025
In the movie Look Who’s Back a character says that with Hitler it’s always a fine line. True that as has been said: the finest of all. Presumably the point of this movie was to make Hitler unlike all the other Hitlers we have seen, the primal screamers, the rug chewers, the hair pullers, the ones with the palsied hand, the one who tantrums and rages—and instead make him a charismatic icon, one with deep inner certitude and irrepressible charm and wit and one possessing unending torrents of eloquence which flow directly from his unshakeable bedrock convictions. And, equally presumably, the point was for the viewer to catch himself falling in love with this man and then when they catch themselves doing this recoil in horror and understand. Understand that they can no longer say well that was just what our ancestors did but smugly say to themselves that it could never happen to me—because it just did. And so to be ever vigilant to make sure that this man, or a man like him, never comes again. If these are indeed the points of this film---and I am convinced that they are—the filmmakers failed miserably. For despite the scenes of “far right” violence with which they end the film, to give a suitable warning, and to make sure everyone knows they are good little Hitler haters, and are right thinking folk, in the movie the character of Hitler takes on a life of his own and begins to live outside of the grasp of his creators. Have they created a monster? No. They have created a hero and they did so despite themselves. And in the deracinated present of our degraded times this power and masterful heroism rings so boldly and true that anyone even remotely honest will have to admit it—if only for a moment, but a pure moment, and perhaps more, and see what all that history was about and see why he will always be a part of us, why he is us, for at the depth and core of our beings we have the same values and the same hopes and the same dreams. For you see with Hitler it is always a fine line—and one the movie, wittingly or not, invites one to cross. For when you play with Hitler you play with fire and the creators of this film got burned. And the final scene where he rides in an open Mercedes down a street and all on the side of him wave and smile and hail him, this scene is supposed to be ominous and portentous and frightening—but it just the procession of the returning king as anyone with clear eyes can plainly see.
The Return Of The King
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Douglas Mercer
- Posts: 10253
- Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2023 7:29 pm
