Captain Fantastic
Nov. 28th, 2017 11:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ericadawn16Captain Fantastic
I LOVED this film!!!
On the surface, you have Viggo Mortensen being adorable with all his on-screen children. However, his estranged wife dies from suicide. She had bipolar disorder and tried to treat it without medication by living off the grid and trying to distract herself with all the children...they have six of them. Eventually, the disorder wins.
Her funeral means that Viggo and the children have to encounter capitalism and everything that everyone else considers normal. There's plenty of discussion about whether raising the children so removed from regular society has been a form of child abuse and not prepared them to be around other people. There's lot of discussion about the pitfalls of consumerism. I'm about as left as can be and so is my mom so I really enjoyed watching all of this. There is this one part where he kind of loses it and they steal stuff from a store, that was the only part we hated.
Ben: [stops the bus to lecture his moping children] We can't go to mommy's funeral. We have to do what we're told. Some fights, you can't win. The powerful control the lives of the powerless. That's the way the world works. It's unjust and it's unfair. But that's just too damn bad. We have to shut up and accept it.
[now turning around in his seat]
Ben: Well, fuck that!
[starts the bus back up and turns on loud bag pipe music]
Kids: [all cheering]
*******************************************************************
Rellian: What kind of crazy person celebrates Noam Chomsky's birthday like it's some kind of official holiday? Why can't we celebrate Christmas like the rest of the entire world?
Ben: You would prefer to celebrate a magical fictitious elf, instead of a living humanitarian who's done so much to promote human rights and understanding?
*******************************************************************
Rellian: If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, then there is a possibility that you can contribute to making a better world.
I LOVED this film!!!
On the surface, you have Viggo Mortensen being adorable with all his on-screen children. However, his estranged wife dies from suicide. She had bipolar disorder and tried to treat it without medication by living off the grid and trying to distract herself with all the children...they have six of them. Eventually, the disorder wins.
Her funeral means that Viggo and the children have to encounter capitalism and everything that everyone else considers normal. There's plenty of discussion about whether raising the children so removed from regular society has been a form of child abuse and not prepared them to be around other people. There's lot of discussion about the pitfalls of consumerism. I'm about as left as can be and so is my mom so I really enjoyed watching all of this. There is this one part where he kind of loses it and they steal stuff from a store, that was the only part we hated.
Ben: [stops the bus to lecture his moping children] We can't go to mommy's funeral. We have to do what we're told. Some fights, you can't win. The powerful control the lives of the powerless. That's the way the world works. It's unjust and it's unfair. But that's just too damn bad. We have to shut up and accept it.
[now turning around in his seat]
Ben: Well, fuck that!
[starts the bus back up and turns on loud bag pipe music]
Kids: [all cheering]
*******************************************************************
Rellian: What kind of crazy person celebrates Noam Chomsky's birthday like it's some kind of official holiday? Why can't we celebrate Christmas like the rest of the entire world?
Ben: You would prefer to celebrate a magical fictitious elf, instead of a living humanitarian who's done so much to promote human rights and understanding?
*******************************************************************
Rellian: If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, then there is a possibility that you can contribute to making a better world.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-02 04:05 pm (UTC)