planktonrules Review of The Promised Land

The Promised Land (1975)

Everything capitalist is evil in this cartoon-like view of history.

[3/10 · 8 April 2013]

I am amazed that this film would have ever been nominated for an Oscar. That's because the film seems very, very one-dimensional in its characterizations and seems much more like a propaganda piece than a historical film. Now I am not saying there weren't some greedy and uncaring industrialists during the Industrial Revolution. However, in this epic from Andrzej Wajda, ALL capitalists are evil scum...ALL. In fact, often there seems to be less attention to a plot and more of an emphasis on characterizing every rich person as lower than pond scum. You see the rich laugh at the hunger of the poor, rape employees, beat their employees, poke wild animals in cages for laughs, get upset when an employee gets torn to bits in the machinery because it messes up the fabric being produced and devote EVERY SECOND to acquiring more and more money. And, when they aren't doing this, they are killing themselves because they have LOST their money! And, oddly, all their women look like characters from a Fellini film. So, all capitalist men are evil...through and through. And, all their women are ugly pigs. Oh, and did I mention that all the Jews I saw in the film were evil money-grubbers?! While the Oscar folks apparently liked it, I consider it a rather hateful film produced by a Soviet-backed government to promote their Marxist view of society. An odd curio, but clearly NOT a film that is very good history or even well written from a non-historical standpoint. Highly overrated.