Dr Garry Potter, professor of Sociology at WLU and a filmmaker.
Trigger Warnings: Torture scenes including hanging, shooting, and guillotine. Severe child labour depicted.
The movie Luxury Eco-Communism: A Wonderful World is Possible, caters to the idealistic vision that we once held before cynicism became the fashion.
While acknowledging the difficulties and impracticalities of a socialist world, Garry Potter tries to communicate how a socialist future could be possible and what that would entail.
In a time when political affairs and the state of our environment seems distressing and any attempts to fix the current situation feel discouraging, this film tries to offer the viewer glimpse what it might look like if we tried to pursue utopia.
The movie gives quick overviews of the problems created by our current capitalist economy such as the pay gap, lack of adequate public transportation, the deplorable state of our health care, and child labour.
It then tries to show how taking a socialist approach to our society might help alleviate these problems.
What Potter gets right in this film is his honest acceptance of the fact that while it may be easy to talk about embracing a socialist society, the actual implementation of it is much harder than one can imagine.
Potter exposes countries that claim to be socialist and have the reputation of being ‘the good guys’ that run in and save the day in third world countries.
He reveals their ulterior motives and admits that no country has ever achieved true socialism.
He tries to show how the life of the average middle-class individual will be different if we adopt a socialist democracy.
The film feels like a watered down version of Hasan Minhaj’s perfected art of social commentary and manner of communicating complex social ideas in a humorous and accessible manner.
While Minhaj’s use of exemplary graphics and references to popular culture help convey his ideas effectively to teenagers and young adults, Potter’s movie tends to feel like that after-school special from the nineties that your middle school refused to update over a decade later.
Then again, it possesses that endearing quality of a dad trying too hard to relate to his kids, so this reviewer quite enjoyed the movie.
I would recommend this movie to individuals looking for a quick and fun way to learn more about the history of socialism, issues caused by our capitalist society, and how socialism might look in the future.
The realistic picture painted by the movie provides a more clarifying vision for wide-eyed young adults who believe in a better future.
There was a free showing of the film on September 14 at at WLU. The screening of the film was be followed by a Q&A session with the filmmaker.
