The use of predicting the past

Rating: 10/10 (23 November 2008)

That film will remain as an eternal classic master piece. Not because it criticize the rotten police department of LA in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Not because it shows a serial killer in his true flesh and in his death sentence, right to the last drop of his last moment. Not because it is using some extremely good actors. Not even because it shows a lost picture of Los Angeles, even if there are a few flaws in that vision. But definitely because Clint Eastwood is trying to tell us an allegory, a tale that is a metaphor reflection of the world at this very crucial moment we are living today in 2008. Then the film is so brutally true and cruelly prophetic that it becomes so bright and hot that we can only close our eyes and wonder if we are able to survive what is coming. When the world is nose-diving into depression, financial or other, due to the total selfish greed of a few and the absolute blindness of most, when the world is in the hands of people who think what they think, no matter what it is, is true and that all those who may even in shy words question their truth are mad and must be gotten away in some kind of camp beyond the protection of the law, when those who are self-righteously proclaiming their absolute truth and reason and logic and divine embodiment and inspiration, then there is no recourse at all, or that is not really an option because you have to survive first. And there Clint Eastwood rises over that chasm, that chaos produced and egotistically nourished and enjoyed by the powerful of this world, and he raises the question of how can we raise the alarm, how can we stop the paranoid schizophrenia of these megalomaniac tyrants, how can we get back on track. Where can we find the energy to start a new deal of the cards? How can we finish a struggle or a fight we did not even start and we have to finish it for sure. The n you have to go and watch the film and just see that Ms. Christine Collins concludes it with a fight to the finish, of yes she can, and her last word that sounds like a call to some badge of courage, that last word we have seen and heard so often lately, HOPE. Yes we can enjoy that HOPE even if we know it will not be satisfied, at least entirely. We can enjoy it because HOPE is in our hearts, is a feeling shared with millions, when it is shared with millions. It is amazing how Clint Eastwood has captured the atmosphere of this historical period so well. Keep in mind that all other details in the films, those that will make you sob with fear and disgust, or those that will make you feel full of pride and envy for that humanity you belong to after all, all these details are the many cherries on top of the cake but remember the cake is the main part of this treat, and it deserves that importance immensely.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines