#predacinemateca

"The rules are shades of grey when you don't do as you say"

This? THIS, IN WINTER 2023-2024? An animated show cutting right down to the core hypocrisy of liberal institutionalism? Swinging for the throat of a rules-based order?? Now, of all times?

Are you fucking kidding me?? This is so perfect it makes me think it's divinely ordained. They couldn't have hit the target any better in a million years.

lmao get enthroned idiot 😭

Spoilers beyond.

Am I grasping at straws when I feel a very distinct thematic buildup in this series? It started out almost like the Conclusion of History (appropriate, since it's building from the Actual Conclusion of the old show), and then proceeded to dismantle that notion.

It's taking place in the 90s. You see it in the clothing, the music, the aesthetics, but it's also glimpsed in a geopolitical parallelism. This story takes place inbetween the previous Grand Narrative of the Cold War and any new one that might arise; a Global Intermission, much like how we remember the 90s today (not that this is how they were, but this is how they are remembered. Much like how this show sells itself as "not the old xmen show as it was, but as you recall it").

Mutants and genoism are the topics of the day but they don't seem to be galvanizing world politics in the same sense as the event that broke the IRL intermission (9/11). You see efforts being made to turn genoism into the new global narrative via a rhetoric of "survival of the species" but people don't seem to be buying into it. There is just enough restraint that the intermission holds. Hell, it even looks like the world might avoid another destructive Grand Narrative - UN regulatory bodies are legislating Sentinels out of existence, and those things were originally funded by the US government. There's almost a glimpse of an attainable peace. Dialogue. Integration. The rejection of Magneto's absolutism and the embrace of Xavier's coexistence-and-compromise.

Carnival Row is like a pressure point in my heart. Everything about its aesthetics, its world and its characters appeals to me. It feels like it was made specifically and exclusively for me.

And yet I can't say that it's perfect. It frequently frustrates me. It feels like it has a limited vision, a palette of what is possible that is confined by the views of its writers, and more broadly, perhaps the shared trauma of our common history. It can only see things in a certain way.

And to some, that way will be both-sides-y, centrist, insufficiently radical. Offensive, even. It insists on "get along" politics. To some extent I share the frustration. The times we live in call for radical art, for pushing the envelope. A more leftist show would have been closer to perfect for me; one that showed, perhaps, an third path to peace, less apocalyptic than a Stalinist takeover and less agonizingly slow than incremental liberal electoralism.

But... you know... who the fuck has ever made the perfect TV show? Has there ever been a perfect piece of art, or a fully comprehensive political take? If anyone tries to tell you that such a thing exists, they're selling a religion.

And you know what's funny? The show knows that. It's not trying to be a political thesis, or to offer a blueprint for the future. It's a fucking TV show; it's at best trying to ask questions and show why the wrong answers are wrong. An open-ended, "I-guess-we'll-see-what-the-future-holds" type ending is exactly what you do when you know you don't have all the answers.

Ultimately I think the people who made Carnival Row tried their best. Within their limitations, whether they were aware of them or not, they made something genuine. Something earnest. Sometimes, even stupidly earnest. It wasn't the best thing since sliced bread.

You know, I'm all for having a movie poster that matches the atmosphere of the movie. This film struck me as rather grim and cynical. It's about a fairly grim period of history after all. The original poster is over-the-top, presenting a controversial historical figure as something of a saint, complete with a halo

Maybe it's okay to take issue with that, and choose something a bit less idealistic for the Bluray re-release. But...