The Russians are Coming

Last night we watched The Russians are Coming, a Hollywood film from 1960s, set during the cold war in smalltown New York, on an island upon which a Russian submarine accidentally lands. 8 sailors are sent out to find a boat to pull them back out to sea. Stereotypes abound, the story unfolds into a series of accidents and mishaps leaving the whole island believing that THE Russians are actually coming, they have landed and WW3 has begun. Chaos awakens the drunken village. A young, naive sailor falls in love with an all-American blond beauty. A little girl blows kisses at burly Russians. All this in silly slapstick style. At the heated climax, the Russian sub comes face to face with the village, threatening to blow them up. Mutual misunderstanding has driven them to a point of no return, it seems. Alas, a distraction saves the day: a little boy almost falls off the church steeple trying to get a better view of the showdown, he dangles precariously by the belt of his pants. When everyone chips in to help the kid, and save him, enemies suddenly become dear friends. The townies decide to escort the sub out to sea as to avoid an intended air attack. The fighter jets swoop dangerously low and, seeing 100s of tiny village boats surrounding the ominous black Russian, decide to head back to the base.

For me the film was great, especially the kitsch Soviet sailors in their stripes and stiff black leather jackets, with ridiculous imitations of Russian language. But this was not the case for everyone in our small audience, some of whom found it difficult to watch what they considered unrealistic and unfair idealism coming out of all-powerful Hollywood-in particular the USA who is seen as the world's bully in this era. It was however agreed as interesting and very relevant to view this film, at this time and place.

Debate involved the following: The issue of a film's role as entertainment as well as meaning or ideology; problems regarding the comedy-war genre which fails to incite deep questioning or thought (as opposed to Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove); and this path led, somehow, to the state of the intellectual in Iran (the opinion was raised that some intellectuals are stuck in hermeneutic thought, creating a danger of misjudging the reality of simple things...)

-and my favorite quote from the discussion:

'they won't drink water unless Gramsci tells them to drink water'


:)