THE EDUKATORS

Original title

The Edukators (Die fetten jahre sind vorbei)

Year

2004

Duration

127 minutes.

Country

Germany  

Director

Hans Weingartner

Script

Katharina Held, Hans Weingartner

Music

Andreas Wodraschke

Photography

Matthias Schellenberg, Daniela Knapp

Cast

Julia Jentsch, Daniel Brühl, Stipe Erceg, Burghart Klauβner, Petra Zieser, Knut Berger, Hanns Zischler, Oliver Bröcker, Peer Martiny    

Producer

Y3 Film / Coop 99

          Genre   Drama

Awards

2004: 2 German Film Awards: 2nd Best Film and Supporting actor (Klauβner)

2004: Cannes Film Festival: nominated to the Palme d'Or (best film)

SYNOPSIS 

Jan and Peter are two friends who fight against political injustices. But they do it in a very peculiar way: they enter in the houses of the rich people, and modify furniture positioning. They do not stole, and they do not do violent actions. When they left from the houses, they signed a note with the name “The Edukators”. Their objective is to scare homeowners and let them see that all their luxuries are unnecessary.

Jule, Peter’s girlfriend, does not know that their friends are the “edukators”. Years ago, she had a car accident with a business man called Hardenberg. She has to pay him a lot of money due to the damage she caused on the car. So Jule is in debt and she has to left her flat and she goes to Peter’s apartment.

Peter travels to Barcelona for a few days, ad Jule begins to meet Jan. Both go to Hardenberg’s house, and they misplace the furniture. The next day they have to return because Jule has left her mobile phone. But Hardenberg arrives home and discovers the two friends. They decide to kidnap and take him to a house in the mountain.

They live together during some weeks, and they begin to meet each other better. They realize that Hardenberg is a good man that, therefore he has a lot of money, he is not happy.

The guys decide to take him home. The rich man promises not to tell the police about the kidnapping, and promises Jule to forgive the debt. 

CHARACTERS

- JAN: he's very radical regarding to refuse capitalist system. He fights against political injustices. He lives wth Peter, and he will fall in lve with Jule, his friend's girlfriend. 

- PETER: he wants to generate changes in the minds of people, but he is not so extremist. 

- JULE: Peter's girlfriend. Due to an accident she had years ago, she owes a lot of money to Hardenberg. She has to left her flat, because she is ruined and she can't pay the rent, and she goes to her boyfriend's apartment. Here, she starts to meet Jan, who she will end up falling in love with. 
It's important to emphasize how her mentality develops: first of all she is a girl whith an mortgage because of a traffic accident, and later she begins to reconsider some questions, like if it is fair to mortgage her life for a man that won't value it because he has a fortune.

- HARDENBERG: business and rich man, he does not feel fulfilled with his money and his luxuries. When he goes to the mountain with the guys he starts to enjoy simple things in life, like cooking, etc. When he spends time with them, he realizes that all he has are unnecessary things that do not make him feel happy. Moreover, the experience with the guys reminds him of the ideals for which he fought when he was younger and which he has lost due to getting older.

The film sets out the issue of the struggle for a new and better world through social movements. There is a reflection on what has to be the right way to build this new world. It considerers if it is necessary to end or not with the rich, whether or not it is lawful violence to achieve that other world, and also appears the question of what persists in the time of our dreams or ideals.

The young protagonists pursue a set of ideals that oppose to the adult world, but those ideals do not make them forget they also have some principles and they have to act following them. Wanting to educate the others reflects the desire to change others according to their way of seeing the world. Throughout the film are showed the discrepancies between Jan and Peter in relation to the media they have to use to get their purpose. Jule also shares the ideals of his friends, and she is who is suffering more directly the injustice of the system.

Hardenberg’s kidnapping offers the possibility to know another point of view. In a certain way, he sees himself reflected in the idealism of youth. On May 68 he was like them, but the years have made him forget all his ideals of freedom. Initially he justifies himself by this, but then he shames. 

The film also is about other issues: social and personal revolution, the struggle for justice, consumerism, friendship, love, the importance of being against having ...

THE WAVE

Original title

Die Welle

Year

2008

Duration

110 minutes

Country

Germany 

Director

Dennis Gansel 

Script

Dennis Gansel, Peter Thorwarth (Novela: Todd Strasser)

Music

Heiko Maile

Photography

Torsten Breuer

Cast

Jürgen Vogel, Frederick Lau, Jennifer Ulrich, Max Riemelt, Christiane Paul, Elyas M'Barek, Jacob Matschenz, Cristina Do Rego, Maximilian Mauff, Maximilian Vollmar, Ferdinand Schmidt-Modrow, Tim Oliver Schultz, Amelie Kiefer, Fabian Preger, Odine Johne

Producer

Constantin Film Produktion / Rat Pack Filmproduktion / Medienfonds GFP

Genre

Drama (based on a true story). Teaching. Schools and Universities. Adolescence. Sects. 

SYNOPSIS 

Everything starts when the teacher Rainer Wegner decides to try an experiment with his students, with the objective to explain them the functioning of a totalitarian regime, and to demonstrate them how easily is to manipulate multitudes.

First of all, everything goes well. But a few days later the teacher loses the control of the situation, and students start to do things without consulting with him: they paint posters, create a logo, subdue the rest of the high school, etc.

Finally, one of the students tells the teacher everything that is happening, but it is too late to stop it. The teacher ends in prison, one of the students shoots another with a pistol, just before committing suicide.  

CHARACTERS 

- RAINER: he is the ideologist of the project. He likes to be respected and listened by his students, and he also likes to see them working in groups, etc. But this project does not work as he thought. When he tries to stop it, it is too late. 

- TIM: this boy has a lot of familiar problems, and he feels out of place in class. When "The Wave" starts, he can feel for the first time integrated in society. But he takes it to heart and he commits suicide. 

- MARCO: he plays water polo. At the beggining of the film he supports the project of the teacher, and he want to be part of it. But later he realizes that is too agressive and radical. Moreover, he does not want to split up with his girfriend, Karo, who disapproves what he is doing. Because of this, at the end of the film he tries to break with the group. 

- KARO: Marco's girlfriend. Since the beggining she disagrees with the project invented by the teacher, and throughout the whole movie she tries to stop it. 

WHY DOES THE EXPERIMENT FAIL?

I think that the principal cause because the experiment fails is that students forget they are doing an experiment. Some of them take the experiment out of context and radicalize it too. Only two students in the class are able to realize the risks they are taking. The other students are unaware of the danger of the situation, and they are carried along by peer group pressure. 

WHAT DOES THE EXPERIMENT DEMONSTRATE?

First of all, I think that the experiment wants to demonstrate how malleable man can be. Firstly, students do not believe that a moviment like fascism can exist again, but after starting the experiment they begin to exclude from the grup all those who do not think like them. Therefore they are creating an ideology similar to fascism. 

Secondly, it makes us think about the strenght of peer group pressure. In the film, there are some characters that feel alone in class, isolated, out of plae, etc., but when they are in the group of "The Wave" they feel more confident. This demonstrates our capacity to do whatever that makes us be part of a group. We need to feel accepted by the others.  

Moreover, the experiment is a proof that, although our intentions are good, we do not always get the results we want. 

POLITICAL QUOTES

-"No man is good enough to govern another without their consent"    -Abraham Lincoln

- “The reason why man is a social being, more than any bee and any gregarious animal is clear, because nature does nothing in vain. Only man, among the other animals, has the word (...) This exists to show what is convenient and what is harmful; what is fair and what is unfair. And this is what s typical from humans and differentiate them from other animals: possess, exclusively, the sense of what is good and what is bad, what is fair and what is unfair”    -Aristotle, Politics

- “Roman’s idiome -perhaps the most political village that we have known- used the expressions “life” and “be among men” or “die” and “stop being among men” as synonymous”    -Hannah Arendt, Human condition

- “Nature has made man good and happy, but the society corrupts him and makes him miserable”    -J.J. Rousseau (French philosopher)

-“From the fundaments of the State we deduce that its ultimate purpose is not to dominate men or shut them out of fear, but rather, to release them from fear to living surely, that is, in order to retain the right to have a natural existence. I repeat that the objective of the State is not to transform men from rational being to brutes and automatons, but their spirit and their body develop in all their functions and make free use of reason without hatred, anger or Rousseau do not allow that unfair wars . The real objective of the State is, therefore, the Liberty”    -B.Spinoza, Logical-political treaty

-“Pleasure which Government provide with has to be very big, because there are so may who aspire to do it”   -Voltaire

-“The greatest danger of the Governments is want to govern too”   -Count Mirabeau (French politician, writer and orator)

-“There are very few men who are so foolish and prefer not to govern themselves before being governed by others.     -Hobbes (English philosopher)

-"To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied, legislated, regulated, indoctrinated, censured, commanded by beings who have neither title nor science nor virtue. Being governed means, in each operation, in each transaction, to be recorded, census, quoted, authorized, admonished, corrected. Under the pretext of public utility and on behalf of general interest, is to be exploited, monopolized, stolen; then, at the slightest resistance, at the first word of complaint, repressed, fined, humiliated, harass, beaten, imprisoned, shoot, machine-gunned, tried, convicted, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and on, mocked, scorned, dishonored. Here you have the Government, its morality and its justice!”                 -Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the XIXth century

POLICY FOR AMATEUR

Title: Policy for Amateur 

Author: Fernando Savater

Year of publication: 1992

Editorial: Ariel

The ancient Greeks called idiotés to anybody that did not implicate in politics. This word meant “isolated person, who has nothing to offer to the others”. In the same line, Aristotle affirmed that we are citizen animals, beings of a political nature.

It is true that we are sociable animals, but not instinctively and automatically sociable as ants or gazelles. Unlike these species, we do not obey blindly what they order to us. Humans can invent different forms of society, transform the society where they have grown up and, if it is necessary, we have the possibility to rebel and violate the established rules.

In this sense, Kant said that men are “non-socially sociable”, because our way of life does not only consist in obeying and repeating; we also have to rebel and invent.

But attention: Savater says that we do not have to rebel against society, but against a determinate society. We do not obey because we do not want to obey anything or anyone, but because we want better rules to obey, and leaders who rule with a more respectable authority.

Politics is merely the set of reasons to obey and reasons to revolt against (whom do we have to obey?, in which do we have to obey? , why do we have to obey?, when, why and how do we have to rebel?).

Our nature is the society. Biologically, we are products of the nature, but humanly we are products and producers of the society. This society is in our service, but we also have to put in its service. Each of the advantages which it offers to us (protection, entertainment, assistance, company, etc.) comes with limitations, instructions, requirements, laws and rules. That is, comes with impositions.

These are not always conventions, they are not immovable part of the reality, but they can be modified or abolish if there is a new agreement among men. Reason would be the capacity to establish conventions, that is, laws which do not come imposed by biology, but which we accept voluntarily.

In the Antiquity power’s legitimacy supported in religious reasons or in the tradition.

Like it happens between ants or bees, some of them were born to order, and the others were born to obey.

Later Greeks arrived-as Savater said-and all started to change: they invented the polis, the community in space anthropocentric where do not govern the necessity of the nature or God’s enigmatic choice, but govern men’s freedom. This means their capacity to think, discuss, choose and dismiss leaders, create problems and set out solutions.

The name by which we know today this Greek invention, the most revolutionary of the Human History from a political point of view, is democracy. All citizens (not all men, and this is one of the major limitations of the Athenian democracy) are politicians, that is, administrative of their polis.

Currently, in our democracies, political parties become practically impervious to criticism and control of citizens due to the closed electoral lists and Parliament voting discipline. As a result, citizens renounce to think about public matters and they lose interest in policy. To this situation it must be added the corruption that occurs between many politicians and discredits this profession, the essence of which should be -as Aristotle affirmed- pursue the common good. 

ANARCHISM

Anarchism is the political doctrine which advocates the disappearance of the State and all of its representative organizations and institutions, and defends the freedom of the individual beyond any authority. 

Anarchism is influenced by Rousseau's idea that affirms that man is good by nature, and it is the society (or the State and its institutions) who destroys his happiness.

The most important principles of anarchist theory are these:

-The defense of individual freedom. 

-The rejection of any sort of authority -especially the State- and of any form of organization (political, religious or administrative). Capitalist State has to be destroyed because it is an estructure that makes possible the exploitation of the working class.  The mean to achieve it is the general strike, which will allow to ruin the bourgeoisie.

-Social organization has to organize itself from bottom to top, based on small self-sufficient communities and free choice of its members, expressed through universal suffrage. 

-The abolition of the private property and the collectivization of the goods. 

-The importance of the education to provide men and women of a critical thought that makes them free. 

The most important anarchist thinkers are these: 

-Proudhon (1809-1895), who is considered the founder of this doctrine.

-Bakunin (1814-1816), who was the first anarchist thinker that introduced his thought systematically. 
                                                    

-Kropotkin (1842-1921), anarcho-syndicalism's representant. 

                                                       

ARISTOTLE

Aristotle defends that the supreme good of man, the happiness, cannot be achieved if it is not in a determinate social order. Political philosophy has to find which is this order. This is a very important task (the most important of the practical philosophy), because the common benefit is more important than the benefit of each individual.  

So Aristotle argues that the objective of the city is to create the conditions in which its citizens can find the happiness. Only the city is able to provide us of suitable methods to have a truly human existence.

Political philosophy, therefore, has to find the most suitable conditions which allow that the most of the people get closer to happiness. The most important conditions are the laws, that allow young people to have the correct orientation, and that this orientation is not lost in adulthood.

So political philosophy occupies on the study of the laws, and its relation with the achievement of happiness.

These laws are registered in political regimes; thus it is necessary to study the justice or injustice of these regimes. That is, their adaptation or lack of adaptation to promote the good of citizens.

Aristotle thinks that the law only complies with its function of encourage political harmony when it is used as an instrument for justice’s realization.

The main obstacle to make political justice is the usurpation of political power by those who would use it for their own benefit after.  It is fair that Government’s actions are oriented to general good.

Aristotle presents three political divert forms that break with this principle of the “common benefit”:

1.  Tyranny, which is a Monarchy oriented to monarch’s interest.

2.  Oligarchy, which is an Aristocracy that only searches rich’s interest.

3.  Demagogy, which is a Democracy that only searches poor’s interest.

Any of these forms tries to find the benefit of the community. Because of this, Aristotle calls them “impure forms”. The “pure forms” are the ones that look for the profit of all the people.

UTOPIA I DISTOPIA

Utopia

Aquesta paraula la utilitzem en el nostre llenguatge quotidià per tal de referir-nos a tot allò desitjable però inabastable, alguna cosa que volem però que està més enllà de les nostres possibilitats presents o, fins i tot, futures. 

Amb el terme "utopia" es designa la idea o representació d'una societat ideal, fantàstica i imaginària, paral·lela o alternativa al món actual. És a dir, la utopia idealitza i projecta sistemes i doctrines de societats perfectes, funcionals i idònies. Per tant, té el seu origen enla insatisfacció o desacord amb la realitat soial existent. En aquest sentit, podríem considerar-la com un motor de canvi i de transformació social. Van en contra d'allò que està establert.

El concepte d'"utopia" també pot designar aquell projecte o doctrina que es considera idoni, però inviable o de difícil posada en pràctica. En aquest sentit, "utopia" també es pot considerar una manera optimista de concebre com ens agradaria que fossin el món i les coses. 

La utopia ofereix la base per crear sistemes de vida alternatius, més justos, coherents i ètics. 

Totes les utopies tenen una sèrie de característiques comunes:

En primer lloc, apareixen sempre en moments de crisi de les tradicions, les ideologies i l'ordre social vigent. Tenen, doncs, una funció crítica. Però, alhora, la seva funció és també constructiva, ja que ofereixen alternatives i cerquen maneres concretes de dur-les a terme. Per això presenten propostes clares de planificació social, normes de convivència, etc.
D'altra banda, es fonamenten en unes determinades concepcions de la naturalesa humana i del bé comú que impliquen certs valors ètis i polítics a partir dels quals construeixen una idea del que haurà de ser el nou ordre social. En aquest sentit, les utopies sempre ideen institucions que condueixin a una socetat perfecta.

Al llarg de la Història, diversos llibres han tractat el tema de la utopia. El primer i un dels més importants és La República de Plató, en la qual l'autor formula el seu pensament polític i les seves idees sobre com hauria de funcionar la societat per arribar al seu màxim nivell de perfecció. A l'Estat ideal proposat , cada grup social hauria de complir una funció determinada. La de governar correspondria als filòsofs, els savis. Recordem que, per a Plató, conèixer el Bé és realitzar-lo. Per tant, estaríem parlant d'un Estat en el qual els seus dirigents tindrien com a prioritat el bé comú i,per tant, la Justícia.


A l'Edat Mitjana, Sant Agustí a La ciutat de Déu, compara la ciutat terrenal amb la celestial, on es viurà en un estat ideal. Es tacta d'un model de societat basat en l'amor a Déu, el menyspreu d'un mateix i la comunió ideal dels virtuosos.

Durant el Renaixement, a través de les utopies s'analitzen de forma crítica els canvis de l'època i es descriuen les aspiracions i necessitats dels diferents grups socials, especialment dels més  febles.

En aquest període destaquen tres utopies:

1)El terme "utopia" va ser inventat per l'escriptor i humanista anglès Thomas More, a partir dels vocables grecs ou, que significa 'no', i tópos, que vol dir 'lloc': per tant, 'lloc que no existex'. 

A la seva obra Utopia concep l'illa de Utopia com una societat comunal, racionalment organitzada, en la qual les cases i els béns són de propietat col·lectiva i no individual, i les persones passen el seu temps lliure llegint o fent alguna activitat relacionada amb l'art. Per tant, aquesta societat viu en pau, tranquil·litat, justícia i harmonia.  

2)Francis Bacon, filòsof, polític, advocat i escriptor anglès del segle XVI, va escriure la primera utopia científica o tecnològica. A la seva obra Nova Atlàntida, parla d'una illa governada per intel·lectuals i científics i fa una apologia de les transformacions tecnològiques.

3)Tomàs Campanella, a Ciutat del sol, descriu la seva utopia política. Ens presenta una societat  governada per sacerdots a la qual regna la concòrdia, no existeix la propietat privada i l'oci té una paper molt important (es treballen només 4 hores diàries).

A l'Edat Moderna, la utopia passa a ser concebuda com un ideal realitzable. Es considera com un futur ideal cap a la realització del qual camina la història. Al darrere d'aquesta nova concepció il·lustrada hi ha la idea de progrés, alimentada pels avenços de la ciència i la tècnica. De la mateixa manera que la realitat física i natural es transforma gràcies a aquests, a la Història existeix també un progrès cap a un món millor, lliure d'injustícies.
Un exemple d'utopia il·lustrada és la del filòsof francès Rousseau (1712-1778) qui, a la seva obra Emili analitza el model educatiu adient per tal de desenvolupar la bondat de l'ésser humà.

Quant a  les anomenades  utopies socialistes (segles XVIII i XIX), tenen el seu origen, d'una banda, en la convicció  que l'ésser humà és capaç de transformar la societat i, d'una altra, en la desil·lusió davant els resultats de la Revolució Francesa. Aquesta havia declarat la igualtat de tots els homes, però no havia fet res per millorar les condicions de vida de les classes treballadores.

Aquest tipus d'utopies poden agrupar-se en tres blocs:
-socialsme utòpic: confia en la bondat humana i concedeix molta importància a l'educació com a mitjà per aconseguir una societat emancipada. Proposa la creació de comunitats on els homes i les dones viurien sense que ningú els dominés. A aquest gru pertanyen autors com Saint Simon (1760-1825), Fourier (1771-1837) i R. Owen (1771-1858),entre altres.

-Socialisme científic o comunista: afirma que les transformacions econòmiques conduiran a una revolució  de la qual sorgirà, paulatinament, una societat sense propietat privada i sense classes. Els seus màxims representants seran Marx (1818-1883) i Engels(1820-1891).

-Socialisme anarquista: representat per Proudhon (1809-1865), Bakunin (1814-1876) i Kropotkin (1842-1921), defensa la supressió de tota forma d'autoritat i la creació d'una organització comunitària de la societat.

Distopia 

Al segle XIX apareixen una sèrie d'escriptors i de cineastes que denuncien situacions no desitjables. Es publiquen diferents novel·les on expressen el seu rebuig a aquestes situacions. Aquest gènere literari rep el nom de "distopia".

Una distopia és un relat que ens presenta un lloc imaginari on la gent porta una vida deshumanitzada i, sovint, hi domina la por. S'anomenen també "antiutopies" o "utopies negatives"

És un terme oposat a "utopia", ja que imagina una realitat futura que transcorre en termes oposats als d'una societat ideal. Es tracta d'una societat fictícia on les tendències socials es porten cap a extrems apocalíptics. Amb això, la distopia pretèn explorar la societat per tal d'anticipar com certes maneres d'organitzar una societat poden derivar en sistemes totalitaris i injustos.

Algunes característiques de les distopies són les següents: en primer lloc, ens mostren imatges de futur on es pateix una involució cap a estadis més primitius. D'altra bada, s'intenta evitar un destí fatal. A més, tracten d'afrontar problemes del món modern, com l'explosió demogràfica, la contaminació mediambiental o la lluita pel poder. El món representat per les distopies està dominat per les grans multinacionals tecnològiques i els governs esdevenen cada cop més irrellevants. 

La literatura distòpica neix el 1921, quan l'ingenier rus Yevgeni Zamiatin publica Nosaltres, presentant uns éssers sense nom que pateixen sota un poder absolut. Veiem com la distopia imagina un futur que manca de privacitat i llibertat, en la qual la ciència i la tecnologia  serveixen per a què unes èlits esclavitzin la humanitat. 

Després de la publicació de Nosaltres, destaquem uns altres tres llibres  que presenten societats distòpiques: Un món feliç, d'Aldous Huxley, 1984, de George Orwell i Farenheit 451, de Ray Bradbury. Tots tres parlen del totalitarisme, la industrialització i les guerres mundials.

A Un món feliç, Huxley imagina una societat que utilitzaria la genètica i la clonació per al condicionament i cotrol dels individus. L'obra descriu també el que seria una dictadura perfecta amb l'apariència d'una democràcia.

1984, de G. Orwell analitza el poder totalitari i el problema de l'individu contra el sistema

Farenheit 451, de R. Bradbury, es una crítica ferotge contra la societat nord-americana de 1953.

El cinema també s'ha fet ressó d'aquest tipus de societats futures mancades de llibertats i governades per poders autoritaris i, en molts casos, arbitraris. Alguns exemples podrien ser Los juegos del hambre (Gary Ross, 2012) , El corredor del laberinto (Wess Ball, 2014) o Divergente (Neil Burger, 2014), entre d'altres