Say goodbye to him, but he will return eventually.
Editor 's note : The release of "Young Marx" has attracted a lot of attention. More importantly, as young people today, we should learn from Marx, who is no longer young.
"Young Marx" is worth watching, if it weren't for the movie tickets so expensive that Marx himself could not afford it.
The director Raoul Peck is a Haitian, a director who was born in a third world country, grew up in Europe, and has a rich experience. He is also a fan of Marxism.
The film tells the life experience of Marx from 1843 to 1848 in a deep, respectful, and slightly serious manner. At the age of 25, he has grown a beard as soon as he played.
During this period, his editor-in-chief "Rheinland" was seized and he was arrested and imprisoned. After that, he was repeatedly expelled for news reviews and theoretical research and forced to go into exile from Cologne, Paris, to Brussels.
During this period, the beautiful Yanni gave birth to a daughter for him. He was impoverished, unable to find a job, and was driven away by the landlord in the rental house.
During this period, he met Engels who was doing research on British workers. The two drank together, chatted at night, wrote books, and reorganized the League of Justice.
At the end of the film, they wrote the "Communist Manifesto." Under Marx's gaze, Engels took off the slogan "Brothers in the Four Seas" and called to the workers from the podium: Proletarians of the world, unite!
The film's lens language and ideological arguments are very restrained. Except for Marx's personality and life which is slightly dramatic, other places are solidly documenting the look and feel of the movie.
Because of restraint, this film has the possibility of global screening; because of restraint, this film about Marx does not make global enemies like Marx himself.
Of course, the director and we all know that Marx is not a person of restraint. The era in which Marx lived is not an era that can be restrained at all.
In Engels' research report, the back of that era was written. He wrote about the poverty, suffering, and darkness of the workers' lives. "More people die not directly because of hunger but because of its consequences: frequent starvation causes incurable diseases, thus increasing the number of victims; hunger makes the body weak, and results in another condition What happened in the past can be done in peace, but now it will inevitably cause serious illness and death."
The bustling city of London is sucking the blood of workers. The bourgeoisie is advancing fast, but the workers have to pay a huge price for it. The movie uses severed fingers of workers to express cruelty, but it does not show these fingers.
I vaguely remember that more than 50,000 fingers are cut off in the Pearl River Delta every year. Like movie screens, our mobile phone displays never show these fingers.
This is the reason why Marx did not restrain. He can't restrain it. Anyone who has a sense of justice can hardly restrain himself in these situations.
Marx in the movie has his own direction. He wants to use theory to destroy people's understanding of the old world and build a solid foundation for the new world. He wants to use class theory as a weapon to call the working class, the historical subject.
At the beginning of the film, Marx criticized the "Rheinland" as "all nonsense about the world revolution, without ideas and programs at all." His pursuit is clearly visible.
Marx had just adjusted to his new life in Brussels, and Engels invited him to London to participate in the activities of the League of Justice. Marx said to Jenny: "These people have ideas, but they lack basic ideas." Jenny, who understands her heart, responded: "And this is what you can provide." His grand ambition to build a system theory is revealed in the subtle daily lives of the two of them.
When the "Communist Manifesto" was about to be submitted, it was repeatedly delayed by Marx, and Engels quarreled with him. Marx said he didn't want to write flyers and pamphlets, he wanted to write books. Marx's desire is directly related to the establishment of a system theory;
In the movie, Marx always has two core propositions, one is to establish a thorough theory, and the other is to use class analysis as a guide for action. For this reason, he parted ways with Proudhon and Weitling.
The film deliberately highlights these two propositions, while restoring history, it also constitutes a dialogue with reality. The film attempts to formulate a prescription for the current predicament facing global capitalism through the confusion and plans of the young Marx.
As if deliberately criticizing the current Western left wing, Marx in the movie said to Powell: "You always write ambiguous literary criticism, ambiguous generalizations, ambiguous politics."
In fact, Marx is not so critical of Powell. In "German Ideology", he just thinks that the young Hegelians are indulging in ideological controversy and are unwilling to try weapon criticism.
The young Marx had an important fission. Around 1846, the so-called "Marx became a communist." After that, he bid farewell to the youth and began to become a revolutionary. Previously, Marx didn't have that much power, he was just an angry Ph.D. of philosophy holding the theory of alienation. This fission is the key to our understanding of Marx's thought and left-wing practice for more than 100 years. Unfortunately, the film has given up on this fission.
However, the criticism of the film is still valid. The leftists and rightists today are indeed only writing ambiguous summaries. And those who have gradually become mainstream are those right-wing leaders who are fanatical and reject theoretical debates, and those who are extremely disappointed and refuse to participate rationally.
In this era, all people who realize that they are going through history, including Wall Street elites and financial consortia, are frightened by the strange changes in the world. Under the hierarchical world order and nation-state order, within this seemingly powerful structure, racism and identity politics are contagious, the solidification of social classes is spreading, the number of workers abandoned by transnational capital is increasing, and the undercurrent is surging. Crisis is everywhere.
With existing theories and knowledge, there is still no way to provide a reasonable explanation for this anxiety, let alone put forward a set of feasible solutions.
The slogan of saying goodbye to Marx has long been outdated, and even "return to Marx" is no longer a new and sensational slogan. However, after returning to Marx’s slogan for a long time, what Marx summoned: the awakening of the proletariat, unity, appearance, weapons of criticism, criticism of weapons...none came back.
"Young Marx" responds to this somewhat dull reality. Where is the way out? The movie hints at us: a thorough theory, and class struggle. At the climax of the movie, "the proletarians of the world unite" replaced "brothers in the four seas", and the "Communist Manifesto" replaced "The Philosophy of Poverty." New call.
These two missions assumed by the mature Marx, "Young Marx" proclaimed them to the world.
It is said that the chairman of the Berlin Film Festival commented on the film as "just in time". A reporter from Xinhua News Agency also said that the film "not only pays tribute to great men, but also inspires audiences to rethink the source of the problems facing the Western world today."
Although their expressions are very cryptic, they at least show that people share similar anxiety and similar expectations for Marxism.
Fortunately, Marx is no longer a young man. So, although some people have advised us time and time again, say goodbye to him, and say goodbye to him, he will eventually return.
Author: Xiong Che
Edit: silently
Beauty Editor: Huangshan
View more about The Young Karl Marx reviews
