One of the film's dominant themes - more stressed in the film than the book - is immigration. And the comparisons are obvious. Some right-wing Republicans in the United States wish to restrict immigration. One Republican House Representative recently said he wanted to restrict the flow of people of a certain religious group into the United States, and others have been accused of racism. In another early scene in the film, the audience sees newspapers plastered on a wall, one of which reads "Immigrants Protest Against Government New Racist Policies." An allusion to the immigration protests that occurred in spring and summer of 2006 in the United States while the Republican-dominated House of Representatives passed racist "immigration reform"?Furthermore, "immigrants" are put into prison camps, and the film's hero works with a group that tries to keep them out of the camps.
...In the film, the government assaults the population with propaganda to make them afraid of illegal immigrants. At one point, a government propaganda broadcast reminds citizens that "to hire, feed, or shelter illegal immigrants is a crime." Republican-controlled Congress almost passed a bill in the summer of 2006 which would have outlawed any charity provided to illegal immigrants in the US, in a draconian measure which would have seen soup kitchen employees serve prison time. Democrats, ultimately successful in blocking the measure, protested at the time that the bill under consideration put forth by a group of radical right-wing Republicans would have essentially "criminalized the Good Samaritan."
A bleak portrait of a dystopian future set against a backdrop of infertility, totalitarian politics and death, it plays like a nativity story for our age, a spirited humanistic message, as well as a welcome ray of hope for the future of cinema itself.Likewise, the NYT's Caryn James says:
But the social problems [PD James] could spot in 1992, like immigration, are even more disturbing now because they are more topical. A member of the novel's ruling Council of England makes a comment that could come from a right-wing radio show in America today. "Remember what happened in Europe in the 1990s?" he says. "People became tired of invading hordes," who expect to "exploit the benefits which had been won over centuries by intelligence, industry and courage."National Review is less kind, but doesn't call the film on its apparent misstatements.
Immigration_piipps · Sun, 12/31/2006 - 11:07 · Importance: 1
perroazul del norte is dead on the money. but what will people do? "nothing",
That, and power-greed which uses such hatreds, to gain positions which would otherwise not go to such undeserving 'representatives'.
The usual smear approach is combined with the false-dilemma, slippery-slope package; but if everything is fascism, why is anyone supposed to care?
If rational arguments were available for increasing the aggression on those to whom we owe loyalty, the citizenry, by way of immigration of the pitiful, on to grotesque obesities of net public subsidy; some would be used.
Muulticult doctrine decrees that affluent, historically white(Japan, Singapore and S Korea get a pass) nations must accept unlimited numbers of poor, uneducated Third Worlders to atone for their success. The ruling elites of the Third World countries (sometimes of overwhelming European ancestry, as in the case of Mexico) are exempt from criticism and assumed to have no responsibility for the conditions of their poor. What we have is simply racial/ethnic hatred and envy disguised as compassion and progressive politics.