In November 2020, concurrent with that nail-biter/farce/singular (or oft-repeated? time will tell) obscenity of an election, Hyperreal Film Club ran a virtual film series on Instagram called PROTEST! RIOT! REVOLUTION! What you see here are the films that comprised that series, along with some context on how they fit into the larger picture. We’ve removed the streaming locations ‘cus who knows if they’ll still be on that platform by the time you read this. Maybe we’ll be uploading movies straight to our retinas by then? Anyhow, a quick search should turn up a place to watch.

As we’re writing this, it’s December 3rd of the Year That Nearly Broke Us All. Biden and Harris are set to take the reins, which is a step in the right direction. How big of a step? We’ll see. What we know is we need to stay vigilant, hitting the virtual and IRL streets every day, however we can. Here are some films to help fuel that revolutionary machine.

WHOSE STREETS? (2017)

Film suggested by @merrymelodylynne

The following is an excerpt from an interview with director @sabaahfolayan that we think speaks powerfully to the moment ~

Q: Social justice work is exhaustive. It can become really easy to get in this mood of “Is it really worth it?” How do you keep yourself out of that mode of hopelessness?

A: I just don’t feel like it’s my job or ability to calculate everything. I think that as long as there are people on earth they’ll be good and they’ll be bad and we’ll always be sort of struggling and of course the goal is to continue to push and continue to tip that balance towards good and towards equity, but we’ll never see the results of our actions, we’ll never see all the ripple effects of what we do while we’re here on earth. So just because we’re unable to conceptualize the positive outcome or just because we can’t see the timeline doesn’t mean that it’s not there. It’s more of a spiritual question than a question of legal documents and I think as tactic we don’t have much else to lean on besides those promises. So I think that those documents and those American ideals, I think we recognized from really early on that it provides a powerful tool to highlight the hypocrisy of America because these things are on paper and it’s there for everyone to see and also to call people to actually try and uphold these values which in theory if they were actually upheld would be very positive. I think that all different tactics are required at all times and it’s pointless to try to have a conversation about what’s the best way or what’s the right way, it’s really about everybody getting involved in the way that they feel is best and pushing in the same direction.

Full interview here

THEY LIVE (1988)

Recc’d and written up by @harsh_realm

"By the late '80s, I'd had enough, and I decided I had to make a statement, as stupid and banal as it is, but I made one, and that's They Live," John Carpenter told the Los Angeles Tims in 2013, "I just love that it was giving the finger to Reagan when nobody else would."

A leftist call to arms disguised as a sci-fi action romp that played in malls across America, They Live shows a marginalized working class banding together to overthrow the ruling one percent.

"All of the aliens are members of the upper class, the rich, and they're slowly exploiting the middle class, and everybody's becoming poorer. It has kind of a theme and a message to it, but basically it's an action film."

Carpenter slips a seething indictment of Reaganomics, the very American worship of wealth, and the power structure keeping the game of life rigged from the police force to media to the hand to mouth grind of low wage labor between back alley smackdowns, monster makeup, rad synth lines, and explosions. His rallying cry is so easy to digest and universal, everyone from QAnon chuckleheads to film scholars to socialists to noted philosophers like Zizek dug in and spun their own interpretation.

Don't believe me? Ask the man, himself.

JOHN LEWIS: GOOD TROUBLE (2020)

Written up by @nickbachan on 8/31 as part of his coverage of films playing in @austinfilm’s virtual screening room

“As long as I have breath in my body, I will do what I can.” John Lewis says that while perusing the morning paper. He follows it up with a matter-of-fact declaration that the United States’ democracy is at stake. He is gone now, which makes this film an artifact laced with newfound urgency.

As one of the 13 original Freedom Riders and the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from 1963 to 1966, John Lewis took tremendous risks to confront white supremacy and systemic racism. From 1987 to 2020, he worked to enact change from within the U.S. House of Representatives. His journey from citizen to activist to state official is symbolic of his passion for lasting justice.

It’s striking to watch Lewis recount his own legacy while knowing that achievements like the Voting Right Act of 1965 were strategically deconstructed within his lifetime. He is often referenced as a civil rights leader and someone willing to stand up to a society that is racist against Black people by design. The narratives of John Lewis’ life and this documentary are essential because the hate he was fighting has outlived him.

This film shows Lewis joking with colleagues, mourning losses, and generally experiencing a wide range of human emotion. This empathetic, multifaceted portrait helps reframe an iconic figure as just another mere mortal hoping we continue to inch toward justice.

the documentary someone fucking better be making about Stacey Abrams right now

I mean let’s be real. Who won the 2020 presidential election? ‘Cus it wasn’t Joe Biden or the Democratic Party leadership. It was powerhouses like Abrams and a million others, recognized and not, who took matters into their own hands to oust a dangerous fascist.

While we absolutely owe it to her to get her back in office ASAP, for now, put some respect on her check! Can anyone find us Stacey Abrams’ Cash App?

MALCOLM X (1992)

Recc’d and written up by @hotdog_aphrodite

What I want to say about this movie is more a comment on the process of canonization than the film’s revolutionary content, but in the end those things are tightly interwoven, huh?

I love a list. Having zero official film... uh... training? education? in my life, I got most of my start in a movie-loving existence by browsing physical shelves (!) in the early aughts with @tannersiphone4s and virtual shelves by way of infinite lists with sundry parameters. One early parameter was, naturally I guess, along the lines of “best” or “epic.”

These lists walked me through the hallowed halls of Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, Scorsese generally, Hitchcock and technicolor greats and on and on. You probably see where this is going.

I came to Malcolm X much later than I should have, but hot DAMN if it didn’t blow the rest of those out of the water. This movie is more epic than the Corleone saga, more inventive than the sled-lover, more sweeping than MGM’s grandest gesture. And most importantly, speaks in a truer and more bracing way to the reality of this country than anything on, say, AFI’s top 100 list. And this film still isn’t on it - I checked.

So where is the disconnect? I’d wager an easy guess that it’s where the disconnect has always been when “the canon” is being assembled: power will never laud discomfort; power will never meaningfully acknowledge oppression.

Death to the canon, long live the fight!

SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (2018)

Suggested by @mtzxale

Review excerpt from film critic Briahna Gray’s excellent piece for @theintercept ~
SORRY TO BOTHER YOU is unique insofar as it is not a story in which our protagonists escape their lowly material circumstances through individual industry, professional grit, or uncommon genius. Rather, it juxtaposes meritocratic excessive wealth with a living wage earned through solidarity. The former comes by chance and accrues only to a chosen few: Cash’s voice is a gift — not something one could work toward — and, because this gift is both profitable and rare, it’s highly valued. By contrast, the telemarketing employees hope to gain a dignified standard of living for everyone by withholding their labor en masse.

This movie differs from classic “rags to riches” tales like The Pursuit of Happyness — a moving film, but one which celebrates a poor man’s journey from homeless to stock broker without critiquing the relationship between concentrated wealth and a dearth of affordable housing, or the absurdity of a “meritocracy” that would hinge a family’s survival on a parent’s ability to dazzle an interviewer with a Rubik’s Cube. The Pursuit of Happyness is touching because it shows one man overcoming impossible odds. Sorry to Bother You is moving because it shows that we don’t have to beat those odds alone.

This framing is no accident. As Riley explained in a series of recent interviews, he’s not interested in performative art or performative politics that aren’t rooted in broader movements. “Progressives and radicals have turned more to spectacle and gone away from actually organizing at the actual point of contradiction in capitalism, which is the exploitation of labor, which is also where the working class has its power,” he recently told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!. “We’ve gone in favor of demonstrations that don’t necessarily have teeth … and I feel like we have to give these demonstrations more teeth by being able to affect the bottom line.”

Riley critiqued an anti-Iraq War “die-in” in an interview with Build. The protest, he said, was enacted with the expressed purpose of making people “aware” of the carnage caused by the war. But “everybody knows the war is fucked up,” said Riley, “they just don’t think they can do anything about it. So there’s a different question that needs to be answered by the artists.” He added, “Art has a place, but it has to be connected to actual movements.” That connection is what makes Sorry to Bother You feel revolutionary.

THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR (1973)

Suggested by @a_nicolina, written up by @hotdog_aphrodite

If you’re only going to choose one narrative film of this lot to watch, make it this one. The internal and external existence of this film was a genesis point for our 💥PROTEST!💥 series, and it’s a key linchpin as well. Talk about using the master’s tools to bust down his bloated house? Doesn’t come more literal, artful, and exciting than it does here.

In keeping with our thoughts on canon re: Malcolm X, this film rattled the film world so deeply that it isn’t available to stream anywhere except a grainy bootleg on YouTube (which you should absolutely check out), and the most recent restoration is only available on DVD. Now I know tapeheads out there will argue this isn’t so uncommon, but hey. There’s a difference between sub-sub-cult no-fi slashers and a film that helped write the book on blaxploitation. There’s a difference between forgotten and suppressed.

As to the film! Damn! SEE! An underground army trained up to perfection. HEAR! Speeches sampled by everyone from Noname to Dead Prez. REVEL! In the sophisticated subversion of a smooth operator playing the establishment for a sucker. LEARN! The methods used to build a revolutionary network. Soak it up, make Sam Greenlee proud. Fight forever!

BATTLE OF ALGIERS (1966)

Suggested by @vallogallo

Excerpt from 2004 review by Ann Hornaday in Washington Post:
The 1965 film, which is being re-released this year in a spanking new print, is as urgent, as intense, as prescient, as wise as it was the day it first hit theaters. Directed by the Italian filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo, it is what would today be called a mock-documentary, but there is nothing mock about it: The Battle of Algiers, which fictionally re-creates the years preceding the 1962 Algerian revolution, is nothing if not chillingly authentic.

Commissioned by the revolutionary government, made by a member of Italy's Communist Party, cast almost entirely with nonprofessional actors (many of whom had fought the actual battles represented onscreen) and filmed in the serpentine alleys, staircases and archways of Algiers's Muslim Casbah, The Battle of Algiers was designed as a propaganda device, one that would convey the revolution's ideals with the immediacy and drive of a cinema verite documentary. Taking a page from the Italian neo-realists of the 1940s and from the French New Wave of the 1960s, Pontecorvo used newsreel film stock, telephoto lenses and a percussive, hard-driving musical score (co-written with Ennio Morricone) to create a swiftly moving political thriller that pulsed with the energy and violence of the street.

A THOUSAND CUTS (2020)

Suggested and written up by @nickbachan

This heart-stopping documentary about press freedom in the Philippines feels existentially threatened for the entirety of its runtime. It depicts the many ways in which Rodrigo Duterte and his authoritarian regime continue to undermine, discredit, and criminalize journalists trying to hold him accountable for mass murder and corruption under the guise of a “war on drugs.”

A dedicated, outspoken journalist named Maria Ressa is the documentary’s primary subject. By the final frame, she comes across as charismatic, humbled, and heroic. Maria repeatedly calls out Duterte’s hypocrisy, misogyny, corruption, and fear-based leadership tactics while his associates and supporters remain so loyal that some of them would actually kill for him. Maria’s colleagues at a publication called Rappler are personally threatened by Duterte, stripped of their press credentials, and constantly attacked online by people calling them “presstitutes.” They are shown succumbing to fear and frustration on a number of levels. One of them, through tears, says that the resulting paranoia “leaks into every part of your life.”

Duterte’s tactics include the recruitment of an extremely popular blogger named Mocha Uson to spread false information online. As explained in the film, people in the Philippines spent the most time online globally. Hate-fueled disinformation campaigns are tested there before being deployed in other countries. Due to the fact that lies and hate spread most easily, an authoritarian strongman like Duterte—who also happens to be openly misogynistic—is perfectly poised to establish dominance and create his own reality in digital spaces.

There are animations throughout the documentary that visualize disinformation campaigns as viruses infecting hosts with remarkable efficiency. This is what Maria Ressa’s messaging is up against, and as far as she is concerned, “Something horrible has already happened.” Democracy and journalism are just the first dominoes to fall.

Late in the film, there is a shot of Maria Ressa addressing people while wearing a mask. This appears to have been captured after the pandemic intersected with the documentary’s very recent timeline. The fact that Maria continues to fight amid increasingly challenging obstacles illustrates the incredible resilience of the few forces for good with influential platforms. That resilience must translate into collective calls for justice.

BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION (2016)

Suggested by @pan.dullce

Stanley Nelson's Director's Statement (2016):
Seven years ago, I set out to tell the story of the rise and fall of the Black Panther Party, a little known history that hadn’t been told in its entirety. In particular, I wanted to offer a unique and engaging opportunity to examine a very complex moment in time that challenges the cold, oversimplified narrative of a Panther who is prone to violence and consumed with anger. Thoroughly examining the history of the Black Panther Party allowed me to sift through the fragmented perceptions and find the core driver of the movement: the Black Panther Party emerged out of a love for their people and a devotion to empowering them. This powerful display of the human spirit, rooted in heart, is what compelled me to communicate this story accurately.

It is essential to me as a filmmaker to try and give the viewer a sense of what it has meant to be black in America and consider this within our contemporary context. The legacy of the Black Panther Party had a lasting impact on the way black people think and see ourselves, and it is important that we look at and understand that. As a great lover of music, I wanted to capture this sentiment in the music we used to give audiences a sense of the time and the undercurrents of change and revolution.

I knew that archival footage would be just as important as interviews when telling this story. The Black Panther history cannot be encapsulated in sound bytes and stills; the movement continues to live and breathe in the hearts and minds of those who endured. I had to dig deeper for footage that captured an authentic portrayal of the Party and which was not distorted by mainstream media. What I found was a treasure of personal records from former members and allies across the globe. These rarely seen images became an important character in the film, telling the story of how the Black Panther Party impacted all communities. There is something incredibly powerful in seeing an array of faces - white, Asian, Latino, black, and native - together at a Black Panther Party rally calling for the reform of corrupt and unjust state institutions.

Nearly half a century later, we find our voices in a renewed chorus for justice and equality. We continue to witness a state apparatus that perpetuates a culture of fear and aggression with frequent and unwarranted displays of racial violence and oppression. As we consider the similarities between the injustices of yesterday and today, it is important to understand that the Panthers were energized largely by young people - 25 and under - who started as a small group of actively engaged individuals that collectively became an international human rights phenomenon. My hope is that the film reveals itself to be more than just thought-provoking observations of our past. The parallels between pivotal moments within the movement and events occurring in our communities today are undeniable. To better understand the Black Panther Party is to be able to better reflect on our own racial climate and collective responsibility to ensure basic rights are fulfilled, not diminished, and that voices of justice and dissent are celebrated, not silenced.

THE 36th CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN (1978)

Suggested and written up by @vikrantn135

Let’s face it: this is the most politically charged the country has been since the early 1970s. Art is often tied very closely with political change, and in the 70s, Black activism and martial arts movies were joined at the hip. Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers churned out film after film of the oppressed and underdogs rising up through hard work, discipline, and superb fighting prowess over their adversaries, something that struck a strong with a post-civil rights Black America. Produced at the tail end of the studio’s most fertile period, 1979’s The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is a rallying cry around the power of knowledge, and the obligation we have to share it with those to empower one another.

Central to director Liu Chia Liang's philosophy is the belief that knowledge and enlightenment are tools to be spread, not owned by any one person or group. The monks at the Shaolin temple are ostensibly the “good” guys, but their rigid fixation of tradition and ownership of their secrets forbids them from sharing their kung fu skills. When the hero San Te asks to teach common people what he has learned, he is forced to leave the temple. However, he still chooses to open up his own school and pass on what he has learned, allowing the Chinese peasants to fight back against their Manchu oppressors.

It's in the climactic fight against the villainous General Tien Ta (Lo Lieh) that we see the culmination of this theme. While San Te would like to build a more focused political uprising through educating the peasants in the ways of the Shaolin monks, the violence around him forces him to react with necessity and engage in battle. His weapon of choice, a three-section staff he invents, is almost entirely defensive, using his opponents’ ferocity against them and allowing him to find their weak points. Ultimately, the fight is won by San Te literally using his head, a subtle move of Chiang acknowledging that for all the physical force one might need to fight against oppressive power, it’s having a good head on your shoulders that really wins the day.

THE SQUARE (2013)

Suggested and written up by @rogerthat589

The 2011 Egyptian revolution in Tahir Square that resulted in President Mubarak’s removal from office was quickly sullied by the citizens’ realization of the regime’s continuing power. Still, protestors return to the streets, filming the gritty continuation of their fight in lieu of minimal and controlled international media coverage. Despite the violence and fear, this footage captures a prescient unity among the people. As protestor Ahmad aptly says, “as long as there is a camera, the revolution will continue.”

OVER THE EDGE (1979)

Suggested and written up by @harsh_realm

Thee ultimate '70s cosplay look book for dudes who like to wear leather and lean on things. Weird how this movie got lionized by Gen X grungers with hair down to their nips. But the boiling rage still grips, and the oppressively ugly Midwest suburban hellscape slashed by highways feels like some banal capitalist dystopia ripped straight from Ballard. This is a dead end kid movie that sounds like screaming into the wind, that stinks rotten in a wasteland devoid of culture where law and order and property value take precedence over community. No future. No escape. Weird how nothing much has changed. Even the brutalist architecture looks the same as any live work eat sleep space popping up for cheap all over this stupid country today. And pigs still blow away kids playing pretend with unloaded pistols. Take notes from this slow boiler of a movie on how to riot once cops cross the line and all decrepit authority figures rank and file into one out-of-touch wall.

LADY OSCAR (1979)

Suggested and written up by @harsh_realm

Marie Antoinette but make it a live action anime directed by bisexual musical nut Jacques Demy. In a time where millions starve right before (the hugely problematic holiday of) Thanksgiving, why not grind an axe watching a woman raised as a man who guards the “let them eat cake” queen realize the aristocratic ruling class needs to face the guillotine. Lady Oscar! Demy really went all out adapting a shojo manga about Versailles hot prob gossip into a French Revolution history lesson. Don’t like the current government? Get out in the street and let those Rich Uncle Pennybags locked up in penthouses hear the people fucking sing. Even in 2020, the French still know how to do it. They suit up and hit pavement at the first slight from doddering centrist goons. Why don’t we rip a page from their history book?

SNOWPIERCER (2013)

Suggested and written up by @harsh_realm

The most ambitious Albert Pyun DSA manga adaptation ever made.

This might be better than Parasite because it doesn’t cool its class rage with Hitchcockian formal precision. Snowpiercer throbs pulp lurid, immediate, loud, and seething. Waves of lower class bodies push against upper echelon enforcers. Many sacrifices snag a narrow path forward. The rich poison young minds with trickle down benevolent captain of industry bootstrap rhetoric.

Did I originally sleep on this movie ‘cause it came out in a more optimistic hazy surface progress era in this cursed country? Anyone who boot licks a billionaire would have a stroke watching Snowpiercer now.

Further watching:

The Battle of Chile (1975-76) — recc by colewilder

Do the Right Thing (1989) — recc by xbyasha

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2003) — recc by merrymelodylynne

Born in Flames (1983) — recc by charlemangle

Knock Down the House (2019) — recc by nickbachan

The Rape of Recy Taylor (2017) — recc by nickbachan

Black and Cuba (2013) — recc by nickbachan

Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019) — recc by nickbachan

I Am Somebody (1970) — recc by nickbachan

Black Panthers (1970) — recc by nickbachan

A Tribute to Malcolm X (1967) — recc by nickbachan