** ## Unit 1 - (Post) Post-Cold-War ### "Welcome to the Desert of the Real"  https://youtu.be/zYyWrawFjus?si=icZpolrLnfknr8_x Describing the Cold War as a simulation is not to dismiss the importance of its impacts. The cold war may be seen as a colonialist conflict between Sino-Soviet-American superpowers with its most significant environmental, economic, and sociological damages imposed upon colonial states in the global south. From this perspective, the conflict was not primarily an economic competition between centrally planned command economies, versus market-driven economies; or an ideological or sociological competition between authoritarian regimes and liberal democracies; but a simulation of these conflicts used to redraw the literal and figurative map, and enforce them on colonial and post-colonial societies. In his 10/7/01 essay, *Reflections on WTC*, Zizek cites Badiou's assertion that the twentieth century has been uniquely focused on the project of mediating the intensities of lived reality---in its most extreme forms--- invariably producing “a product deprived of its substance” (“Zizek/Reflections on WTC”, p. 2) Zizek here draws on The Wachowski's references to Baudrillard's reversal of Borges' vision of "tattered ruins" of a map “inhabited by Animals and Beggars”. (Borges, 1999, p. 1) Baudrillard insists that the impossible map has replaced reality altogether, and in this configuration, *we* are the animals and beggars, “in the deserts which are no longer those of the Empire, but our own.” (Baudrillard, 1998, p. 1) From this perspective, our dependency on mediated reality is absolute, even while the coherence of reality itself is no longer dependable. The truth of this evades simple moralizing even if there is a tendency to approach it with alarm. As Baudrillard attempts to (re)assure us: “there cannot be a real catastrophe because we live under the sign of virtual catastrophe.” (Baudrillard, 1993, p. 26) Or as Deleuze and Guattari put it, we make ourselves safe in the refrain: “This is the postromantic turning point: the essential thing is no longer forms and matters, or themes, but forces, densities, intensities.” (Deleuze, 1987, p. 343) We see these intensities reproduced by simulations in films from this unit in a variety of ways. ### Simulation as Control In *Underground*, Marko says (1:27:23) "The truth? ...No text, my dear, has any truth in it. The truth exists only in real life. You are the truth. You. You are supposed to be the truth. There is no truth, only your conviction... art is a Lie." Meanwhile, Marko has been distorting time and simulating an ongoing war to keep his brother, best friend, and symbolically, his nation, oppressed by their fear of oppression *"The Aggressor is attacking again."* The Tank in the cellar (1:14:54) is a visual representation of the nested dolls of safety in a security and surveillance state. the monochromatic and cluttered mise en scene of the cellar, already claustrophobic, but for increased security, the offensive weapon, a tank, is transformed into a shelter within the shelter. The impossibility of fitting all of the cellar citizens inside evokes the absurdity of their situation. ### Simulation as Security: In *Good Bye, Lenin* Alex struggles to mediate reality for his mother, Christiane, in the same way that a loving parent mediates for a child, by offering as much of the truth as they believe will afford a sense of security, familiarity, and understanding, while constructing a virtuality not divorced from truth, but where the edges have been softened. In the final hospital scene (1:51:23), Alex is no longer wearing the bright hopeful blue of his youth, or the intense red of socialist ideological intensity, but a muted plaid containing both. The blurred edges of the TV both compress the space between Alex and Christiane, and remind us of the powerful place media holds in their lives, and Alex's efforts to soften the hard facts of the "real" However, it is not until Christiane understands Alex's role in constructing this map that we realize her commitment to socialist ideology is less important to her than her commitment to the ideals of humanism and love, ideals that alex demonstrates in his media intervention. ### "'now' has no meaning here," ... "Then 'here' has no meaning either." *"where am i?"* *"Not 'where'. 'When' is what you must ask."* Khadak (2006) is a mystically coded meditation on the social, spiritual, economic, and environmental challenges facing traditional Mongolian society. Koutsourakis effectively argues that the depiction is intended to interrogate the expectation of linearity in temporal relationships, “the boundaries between past and present are somehow obscured and the film’s aesthetic slowness intensifies this effect.” (Koutsourakis, 2017, p. 307) and offer a collectivist counter-history to the racist/colonialist appropriation both of universalized capitalism, and of Sino-Soviet command economy. “Such a complex depiction of time is not to be understood under the rubric of fatalistic repetitions, but as a means of identifying how our historical present is still marked by oppressive structures from the past, as well as by revolutionary failures and energies that can be reclaimed and transformed.” (Koutsourakis, 2017, p. 308) *"there was a time when man took too much. the desert moved, extinguishing life."* Like Marko in Underground, troops disrupt the agronomic life of Bagi and his family of herders with a simulated livestock plague, forcibly relocating them "where there is work" in a mining colony. From this perspective, the Mongolian people are faring no better under the exploitation by the economic forces of modern western capitalism, than they were under the exploitation of the Soviet Empire. Their experience under either regime is alterity, producing resources for a global power. **Their only hope is to reclaim the power to redraw their maps for themselves.** ![[Pasted image 20251009005944.png]] The inversion of the tree in Bagi's vision (from 1:16:45-- 1:17:35) illustrates this possibility, of reconsidering the familiar, where branches reaching for the eternal blue sky viewed differently may also be understood to be roots, anchoring the community in the dreams of their ancestors. This is a vision of liberation through understanding, vast and unconstrained; in contrast with the cramped conditions of the bomb shelter in underground, or the warm institutional/domestic environment in the hospital. ### "The desert will always win." This kind of circular temporality rejects the teleology of both Fukuyama's "end of history" and Marx's Communist Society as the inevitable culmination of class struggle; offering instead to reframe history as an ever-present origin of emergence and collapse of localized consciousness. In such a system, media serves as mythopoeic transmission, not of ideology, but of conscious awareness, either stimulating, or stultifying individual consciousness. "you may get lost. Don't be afraid... the sky is watching you" --- Baudrillard, Jean. “Jean Baudrillard. Simulacra and Simulations.” _Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings_, 1998. Baudrillard, Jean. _The Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomena_. Verso, 1993. Borges, Jorge Luis. _Collected Fictions_. With Andrew Hurley. Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition. Penguin Books, 1999. Deleuze, Gilles. _A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia_. With Félix Guattari and Brian Massumi. University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Koutsourakis, Angelos. “Visualizing the Anthropocene Dialectically: Jessica Woodworth and Peter Brosens’ Eco-Crisis Trilogy.” _Film-Philosophy_ 21, no. 3 (2017): 299–325. [https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2017.0053](https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2017.0053). “Zizek/Reflections on WTC.” Accessed October 9, 2025. [https://www.lacan.com/reflections.htm](https://www.lacan.com/reflections.htm). --- ## Good Bye, Lenin Setting aside the finer point I would prefer to make, that the GDR hasn't "become" a media construction, but like all identarian states, was only ever primarily that---Enns is suggesting that media reproductions of the past inevitably construct a simulacrum, a necessarily novel imagining of the past. This new 'media construction' then offers various modes of engagement with both the past and the present, but are essentially distinct from the modes of engagement that were available in the actual past. These modes can range from uncritical "unreflected" nostalgia---to nostalgia that affords critical distance from the present---to a "reflective" nostalgia that offers the opportunity to re-engage with the past while maintaining newly developed critical awareness. In the diagetic world of _Good Bye, Lenin_ this process of media constructing reality is demonstrated in many ways, being a key theme of the film. From the label on a pickle jar transforming Dutch pickles into Spreewaldgurken (1:18) to a false newscast transforming Coca Cola into a socialist invention (1:06), the frequent competition to construct and reconstruct competing realities is highlighted. A key example is when a fuzzy lamp, western marketing, and the appearance of western cars (1:22) transforms the Karl-Marx-Allee into an alien landscape, but a simulated newscast (1:24) restores the terrifying vision back into a more familiar world, albeit altered by a surprising social project. Importantly to the article, only in the final news broadcast, which reframes unification as a triumph of the GDR (1:50) is Christiane allowed the possibility of "reflective" nostalgia, after Lara provides the necessary critical awareness for Christiane to consider this new Germany to be a product of Alex's care and social conscience.  Stepping beyond the diagesis of the film, _Good Bye, Lenin_ itself (as a media object) functions to reconstruct the GDR in a blended form of nostalgia. The first six minutes of the film, are a combination of file footage and reenacted family memories. The memories use a particular color palette with saturated blues possibly suggesting hopefulness, (see the Rocket ship scene at 5:26) up until about 8 minutes when the movie's prologue transitions to October 1989. From here, Red becomes a dominant color, representing the oppressive regime and possibly the growing conflict in the GDR. Even the household scenes have a strong tint and desaturated color. Alex still often wears denim, and Lara wears a blue smock. This shifts again when the wall comes down and Yellow begins to appear more prominently (note the color of burger king uniform and label @19:24, and Ariane's Yellow coat 31:40), seemingly a representation of encroaching capitalism. After the Kubrick homage in setting up Christiane's bedroom at 35 minutes, a more generally balanced palette emerges, culminating in the very balanced colors of the outdoor scene at their dachau (1:30). The rest of the film has a dominant tint of subdued blue with a few bright pops of color, framing the current state of the post unification East as, like Alex, still hopeful, but also wiser after experiences following the exuberance of the initial reunification. --- ## In the Heat of the Sun Braester effectively makes the case for a political reading of "In the Heat of the Sun" where the narrators unreliability is framed as an act of resistance. In this approach the indifference to an "objective" history is a mode of detached irony _intended_ to destabilize the typical Maoist mythical narrative which is "...more lofty, more intense... more ideal than daily life. (braester, 197)  I will just try to extend Braester's reading of the film by suggesting the value of incorporating a more subjective, neuropsychological reading, where the unreliable structuring of personal autobiographical events may also undermine the tone of nostalgia by accurately depicting neuropsychological effects of chronic childhood stress. [Numerous](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52733-4) [studies](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3513357/) have shown that acute and chronic stress can profoundly change the brain's modes of memory-making, potentially resulting in omission, distortions, and confusion. I would pursue the possibility that there are two forms of narrative instability occurring in _In the Heat of the Sun_. First, those that take the form of imaginative (mythmaking) rehearsal---the kind that Ma Xiaojun engages within the film in the mirror (@ 0:44), and is paralleled by Ma Xiaojun's chimney-climb (1:25), knife in the teeth aquatic rescue of Milan at the pool (1:54), and the birthday party scene that Braester analyzes (2:02). These do effect the subversion of Maoist mythmaking, where revision of history becomes fabulation, by the narrator calling attention to these episodes' inaccuracy and metanarrative goals. But another mechanism may be at play in the chronological confusion of a few things like Ma Xiaojun's flight from Milan's grandmother, which he denies during an early meeting (1:11) but is eventually portrayed much later in the film (1:46), the object instability that occurs with the various incarnations of the red swimming suit throughout the film, Ma Xiaojun's blended relationships with Milan and Yu Beipei, and other matters. These shifting contradictions do not clearly contribute to the mythologizing of Ma Xiaojun. They might however, be read as the neuropsychological effects of repressed chronic stress or childhood trauma. Through this lens, the instability of the film is not only ironic distance or political resistance, but also an accurate depiction of the psychic costs of the revolution---autobiographical distortions and overgeneral memory resulting from the chronic stress and trauma of familial dissolution, weak community bonds, and the lack of mature role models in the young boys' lives.  [Overgeneral memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overgeneral_autobiographical_memory) (OGM) is a condition where individuals struggle with individual autobiographical recollections, and tend to recall "general memories... such as repeated events or events occurring over broad periods." OGM is correlated with a variety of mental health issues, including, depression and PTSD. This could be a mechanism for interrogating the eternal summer depicted in the film. This dual reading avoids reducing the personal aspects of the film to a political allegory, just as Braester lauds Jiang's resistance to "Orwellizing" the Cultural Revolution (p199); and it contributes an additional argument for rejecting Barme' et. al claims of "Totalitarian nostalgia" (200). Realizing I didn't address the visual aspects, emerging from the chimney, ma xiajun resembles sun wukong the Chinese monkey god with superhuman powers. Swimming with the knife, resembles many film depictions of amphibious assault commandos, and in the birthday dinner, of course, time reverses. --- ## underground 1994 I. At the opening of part III - War (2:22:10), after a quick fade up from the title card, Ivan is seen in 1992, Berlin, presumably having travelled via the underground from Belgrade in search of Soni. A tracking crane shot slowly pushes in to Ivan, halfway up a large conifer. lit from behind by the cold light of the morning sun. a light dusting of snow covers the grounds of what appears to be an large institutional building, where patients and staff, indicated by the bathrobes and white uniforms, are strolling. Seen from below, Ivan, in a green courdoroy gown loosely tied around his clothes, gazes west, clutching a broken branch from the tree. He has aged considerably since we last saw him, now with thinned grayed hair and moustache. His blank expression and thousand yard stare appear to be the face of someone who has seen too much. "Officially, he is dead." says one doctor in voiceover, "On the contrary... he looks good" replies a colleague. To the audience it is clear, Ivan does *not* look good. Ivan looks like he realizes that he has been profoundly exploited and sacrificed too much for the false story he believed in the basement. To modern audiences it appears he might be aware that he survived the 1941 Nazi bombing of Belgrade, the 1944 Allied Forces bombing of Belgrade, and is now seeing the future, the impending 1999 NATO bombing of Belgrade. Or perhaps in his semi-catatonic state he is merely free from his history altogether. ![[underground1.png.png]] II. (2:11:06) On the Danube, in a small rowboat, Blacky holds a glass liquor bottle before him like a charm. The sun glints from it briefly before crossing Jovan's upturned, confused face. The warm light of the rising sun crosses the frame from left to right, drawing our attention to the clutched rifle, made in the cramped, dimly light conditions of the cellar, and Blacky's other magical totem, a belt of ammunition crossing his chest. Soon the brilliance of the open world overwhelms Jovan and he begins to turn away from the sun. The boat rocks as the two men enjoy the peaceful world, still holding their magical defenses, but their history of conflict forgotten for the moment. "How Beautiful this world is. Congratulations." ![[underground2.png.png]] III (19:59) In a crowded apartment in Belgrade, Marko and Elena? lean in to a radio, listening to the Gestapo's reports on Marko and Blacky's latest caper, a train robbery of arms and munitions. Elena appears to be in the cage with the rabbits. Is it her fear? or her fertility that leaves her trapped? On the left side of the crowded frame, Marko is warmly shining beneath a perfect fedora. When he hears his name over the radio his response is unclear, is he proud to be recognized? "Nothing. Last night, we roughed up a few thieves." Who is a thief who steals from robbers? Here we see history is written by those who control the radio transmitter. To resist this history is a kind of freedom. This is the real underground. ![[underground3.png.png]] ### Class Films [Good Bye, Lenin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Bye,_Lenin!) (German, 2003) [In the Heat of the Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Heat_of_the_Sun) (Chinese, 1994) [Underground](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_(1995_film)) (Serbian, 1995) ### Individual Project Films [Leviathan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(2014_film)) (Russian, 2014) [Khadak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khadak_(2006_film)) (German/Mongolian, 2006) [Sweet Mud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Mud) (Israel, 2006) [Cold War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_(2018_film)) (Poland, 2018) [California Dreamin'](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Dreamin%27_(endless)) (Romania, 2007) ## Unit 2- Human Rights ### Class Films [The Teacher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Teacher_(2023_film)) (Palestine, 2023) [Sorry, Cinema ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Ground_Zero)(short, Palestine, 2024) [Charm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Ground_Zero) (short, Palestine, 2024) [Donbass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donbass_(film)) (Ukraine, 2018) [Servant of the People](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_of_the_People_(2015_TV_series)) (Ukraine, 2015) [The Act of Killing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Act_of_Killing) (Indonesia, 2012) ### Individual Project Films [Bamako](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamako_(film)) (Mali., 2006) [Wadjda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadjda) (Saudi Arabia, 2012) [Rafiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafiki_(film)) (Kenya, 2018) [Crossing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_(2024_film)) (Turkey, 2024) [Holy Spider](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Spider) (Iran, 2022) ## Unit 3 - Race and Migration ### Class Films [Do the Right Thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_the_Right_Thing) (U.S. 1989) [La Haine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Haine) (France, 1995) [The World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_(film)) (China, 2004) ### Individual Project Films _[Green Border](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Border)_ (Poland, 2023) *[Children of Men](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men)* (U.S., 2006) *[Illegal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_(2010_film))* (Belgium, 2010) [*Jupiter’s Moon*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter%27s_Moon) (Hungary, 2017) *[Atlantics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantics)* (France/Senegal, 2019) ## Unit 4 - Realism in the Digital Age ### Class Films [Festen (the Celebration)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celebration) (Denmark, 1998) [Taxi Tehran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_(2015_film)) (Iran, 2015) [Birdman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdman_(film)) (U.S., 2014) [The Congress](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)) (France, 2013) ### Individual Project Films TBD --- --- ## Khadak (2006) Prepare a written presentation, 1,000–1,500 words long (not including citations), that responds to the following questions: - How does the film relate to the module’s themes, namely the cold war, its aftermath, and its reevaluation in the present? **Define what "the Cold War" and/or "historical reevaluation" mean in the context of the film. **- Focus on **a specific scene** in the film, no longer than a minute (provide the time stamps). **Do not try to describe the entire scene.** Rather, explain the place of the scene in the film.  - Compare the scene with **two** of the movies discussed in class as part of this module (_Good Bye Lenin!_, _In the Heat of the Sun, and/or_ Underground) - In your analysis, refer to **at least two secondary sources** that add relevant information, such as reference by the director to the course themes, or production background. **Cite your sources.** **See rubric for more details!** Step 3: Submit your presentation and essay on Canvas (here) by **noon, October 9**. Step 4: Present your work to your group on October 9. Prepare a PowerPoint presentation with the relevant images. The presentation should include specific questions to initiate a discussion. Step 5: After class, add a response to the following question: How did other group members’ presentation influence your thinking about the film on which you presented? How does the film relate to the module’s themes, namely the cold war, its aftermath, and its reevaluation in the present? **Define what "the Cold War" and/or "historical reevaluation" mean in the context of the film: _Khadak_ (Mongolia/Germany, 2006), directed by [Peter Brosens](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_Brosens&action=edit&redlink=1 "Peter Brosens (page does not exist)") and [Jessica Woodworth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Woodworth "Jessica Woodworth")..** **Films together** - [Khadak (2006)](https://letterboxd.com/film/khadak/) - [Altiplano (2009)](https://video.alexanderstreet.com/watch/altiplano) - [The Fifth Season](https://letterboxd.com/film/the-fifth-season/) (La Cinquième Saison, 2012). Brosens, Peter, Olivier Gourmet, Magaly Solier, et al., dirs. _Altiplano_. New World Cinema: Independent Features & Shorts, 1990-Present. First Run Features, 2009. Koutsourakis, Angelos. “Visualizing the Anthropocene Dialectically: Jessica Woodworth and Peter Brosens’ Eco-Crisis Trilogy.” _Film-Philosophy_ (Edinburgh) 21, no. 3 (2017): 299–325. [https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2017.0053](https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2017.0053). ### [Peter Brosens](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0112456/) (b.1962) #### Inti Films' Mongolia Trilogy: - *City of the Steppes* (1994) - *State of Dogs* (1997) - *[Poets of Mongolia](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2651852/?ref_=ttpl_ov_bk)* (1999) ### Jessica Woodworth [_Urga Song_](https://film.twn.org/products/urga-song) (1999) *[Luka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luka_(2023_film))* (2023) In 2016 Woodworth and Brosens released their first comedy, _[King of the Belgians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_the_Belgians_\(film\) "King of the Belgians (film)")_.[[12]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Woodworth#cite_note-euawards-12) The road movie about a monarch lost in the [Balkans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkans "Balkans") became an international hit and won numerous awards.[[12]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Woodworth#cite_note-euawards-12)[[13]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Woodworth#cite_note-13) The film premiered at the Cannes Critics’ Week in 2009, it won KNF Award at the [International Rotterdam film festival](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Film_Festival_Rotterdam "International Film Festival Rotterdam"), and took Grand Prix at the [Bangkok IFF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangkok_International_Film_Festival "Bangkok International Film Festival").[[12]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Woodworth#cite_note-euawards-12) _King of the Belgians_ was followed by a sequel, _[The Barefoot Emperor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Barefoot_Emperor "The Barefoot Emperor")_. --- Khadak (2006) is a mystically coded meditation on the social, spiritual, economic, and environmental challenges facing traditional Mongolian society. Koutsourakis (2017) effectively argues that the depiction is intended to interrogate the expectation of linearity in temporal relationships (p 308) and offer a collectivist counter-history to the racist/colonialist appropriation both of universalized capitalism, and of Sino-Soviet command economy. From this evaluation, we see that Mongolian people faring no better under the exploitation of the Soviet Empire, than under exploitation from the economic forces of modern western capitalism. Their experience under either regime is alterity, producing resources for a global power the blue khadak tied around the horses neck, 23:49 blue cloth tied @30:09 blue woman @35:51, Singing @38:11-38:41, crowd @43:44, ambulance @44:25 resistance: grandfather @ yurt assimilation, mother @40:20 operating machinery fugitivity: horse christianity replacing culture @42:50 (apples) 04:10 tree scarf listening "your ancestors are waiting for you, dreaming of you, calling you" fish under ice 05:11 45:10 "how poor we are at defending ourselves." "the spirit of the place where we were born... and of the water in which we were bathed,,, and even the stones of the riverbed... are dreaming of us." "even the souls of our ancestors are dreaming of us." transition at 47:00 with weeping/mourning giving up hope? surveillance media @48:53 @50:05 supernatural causality @51:13/52:00 when he discovers her 54:50 soldiers: mongolian? Chinese? 55:49 work gang compare with Underground, prison in GBL? 58:25 counting/last supper framing musical number compare with Tito song in UG 1:04:48 shamaness / seizure 1:06 institution (UG) 1:07:11 Apple 1:11 shamaness bottles 1:14:45 counting 1:15:36 1:16:20 jumps into hole 1:17 tree upside down 1:18:56 "where am i?" "Not 'where'. 'When' is what you must ask."... The future is only possibility "'now' has no meaning here," ... "Then 'here' has no meaning either." "you may get lost.. Don;t be afraid" "the sky is watching you" 1:20-1:21 water 1:22: Concert compare to wedding? 1:24 burning yurt 1:24- X awaits death of Y 1:26:14 blue cloth in bushes 1:28:25 march down to factory 1:28:50 raid on factory mirrors dazzle the guards sheep 1:30:29 falling blue khadak 1:30;45 liberating horses 1:38:33 blue khadak on tree from beginning It's not the ideology, its the awareness The desert will always win. If once we were able to view the Borges fable in which the cartographers of the Empire draw up a map so detailed that it ends up covering the territory exactly [...] this fable has now come full circle for us, and possesses nothing but the discrete charm of second-order simulacrum [...] It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges persist here and there in the deserts that are no longer those of the Empire, but ours. The desert of the real itself. as always the limited options of for framing response: Insurgency, Assimilation, Collaboration, and Fugitivity In the movie Reign of Fire (2002), a cultural myth is made from the story of Star Wars, passed down by word of mouth in a postapocalyptic society. Similarly, in *Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play* by Anne Washburn, a fragmented retelling of the characters and situations from the TV series *The Simpsons* becomes a myth for society after. This happens in *Good Bye, Lenin!* and in *In the Heat of the Sun* as well. the memory of media becomes a way of remediating and reimagining autobiographical details. The memory of the German Astronaut remediated through the false television broadcast becomes an invocation of national pride intended to elicit trust from Christiane. The memory of the eight model plays become an invocation of national pride intended by the boys to summon courage and strength from each other. The mesopoeic imagination of transpersonal experience is that extend beyond the typical everyday human experience and to realms. Transcendental superhuman experience are a good match with cinematic hyper reality generated by simulation which you can control not just content but also the formal aspects of the audience's experience in a film. Repetition reinforces reproduction. Watching films repeatedly over and over whether available films in a repressive regime reinforces the structures of those cells and the minds of the viewer were saying potentially but not necessary ---