The Favourites
Green Room is a masterpiece of suspense, while also being one of the best indicators of social unrest that was brewing underneath western culture in the mid-2010s. While on its surface it is a very simple film, an Assault on Precinct 13 style defense film about the ill-prepared versus the highest levels of human evil, underneath its frenzied destruction is a clear allegory of the truths and lies we are told by ourselves and others. A film about two different ideas of identity, and how it is in truth that we find actual salvation while lying to ourselves about our freedoms can lead us to ruin. All that, and a hand almost getting chopped off with a machete.
A set up so obvious it’s almost amazing that it took until 2015 for a major motion picture to take it on, a film about punks squaring off against Nazis has many different attributions that make it a dynamic confrontation. While it’s the differences that stand out upon first comparison (right-wing fascism vs. left-wing socialism) it’s the similarities that are more interesting within this film. Both groups function strongly on a DIY community sensibility, on the belief that it is better to take one’s own path than to conform to a mainstream ideal. Both have strong, loud, aggressive ideologies that do not bow easily to public pressure. It is when these ideologies are stressed, though, that the strength of these claims of community and freedom are tested.
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