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This reminds me of the wide range of reactions sparked by Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror, his most avant-garde film. On one hand, you can put that film on before a g

This reminds me of the wide range of reactions sparked by Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror, his most avant-garde film. On one hand, you can put that film on before a gathering of fairly open-minded cinephile friends, and even they might reject it as artsy-fartsy or unintelligible. On the other hand, a number of ordinary proletariat people in the USSR wrote to Tarkovsky to say how his film touched them deeply and felt directly relatable to their own lives.

bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
[flagged]
- PrismCrystal 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
    > nearly everyone in the USSR was working class For most of its history, nearly everyone in the USSR was a farmer, so not proletariat and not communist. > I would suggest watching the film The first few paragraphs on how the movie is about a person remembering important episodes of his life got me curious and gave me Butterfly Effect vibes (good), but reading further down I started getting Mulholland Drives vibes (not good).
    - PrismCrystal 2y ago
      "For most of its history, nearly everyone in the USSR was a farmer, so not proletariat." They certainly were in the context we are speaking of here. Official Soviet terminology, apparently starting at least from Lenin but I haven’t checked this thoroughly, divided the proletariat into rural proletarians (in Russian селские пролетарии) and urban proletarians (городские пролетарии). In any event, in colloquial contexts the word serves handily to refer to a life of rather menial trudging wherever it’s lived.
      - bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
        Of course Lenin had an interest in selling the idea that everyone is actually proletariat. In reality by Marx's definition, proletariat are those who don't own the means of production (and are therefore stuck in earning by selling their labour), whereas farmers at least until the NEP died, mostly owned their own farms which means they did own the means of their production, which is also why farmers, or virtually everyone in the USSR outside the cities hated the communists. But I got your point.
        PrismCrystal 2y ago
        [flagged]
    - nl 2y ago
      > nearly everyone in the USSR was a farmer, so not proletariat and not communist This statement has a number of flaws. > nearly everyone in the USSR was a farmer True during the early years, but after WW2 changed rapidly (in line with the West). [1] shows rural population percentage dropped from 67% in 1939 to 56% in 1956, and it rapidly decreased after that. [2] is female specific but by 1975 under 1/3 were working in agriculture. In addition, everyone other than the actual owner of the land was considered "The Agricultural Proletariat". Engels wrote [3] about this in 1845 well before the establishment of the Soviet Union. > so not proletariat As seen above, this doesn't follow especially after the establishment of collective farming where everyone were considered workers. [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/1233891 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1233891 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_working_class#Women https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_working_class#Women [3] https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/ch12.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-w...
      - bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
        > As seen above, this doesn't follow especially after the establishment of collective farming where everyone were considered workers. Correct! Farmers owned the landed, the communists came and stole it from them - sorry "collectivized" it - and so made it worse for the farmers turned proletariat. So you understand that farmers hated communists.
- beepbooptheory 2y ago
  You really cracked the case here wow!
- aprilfoo 2y ago
  > OF COURSE it was popular with communists A long story short: it wasn't. Tarkovsky suffered from censorship and lack of support for the production of non propaganda movies, like many others. > Edit: just started reading the movie's Wikipedia page Watching movies and reading about them before commenting on them is usually a good starting point.
- dang 2y ago
  Starting an ideological flamewar like this is abusive on HN. Since we've already asked you not to do this, I've banned the account. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
aredox 2y ago
I happened recently with my girlfriend and I after watching The boy and the Heron, the last Miyazaki. I was disoriented, trying to make heads or tails of what I just saw, and she was completely happy of all the poetry and symbolism she just saw. Some art pieces are not meant to be overanalyzed. They are meant to be felt.
- wetback 2y ago
  I had the same experience with the movie. Even though I knew up front about Isao Takahata’s passing, I struggled to make all the imagery fit into my expectations of a “coherent” story. At one point I just had to let go of my search of any overarching analogy, and just enjoyed the fireworks.
- yzydserd 2y ago
  The oft quoted phrase: “writing about music is like dancing about architecture”.

bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago

[flagged]

PrismCrystal 2y ago
[flagged]
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
  > nearly everyone in the USSR was working class For most of its history, nearly everyone in the USSR was a farmer, so not proletariat and not communist. > I would suggest watching the film The first few paragraphs on how the movie is about a person remembering important episodes of his life got me curious and gave me Butterfly Effect vibes (good), but reading further down I started getting Mulholland Drives vibes (not good).
  - PrismCrystal 2y ago
    "For most of its history, nearly everyone in the USSR was a farmer, so not proletariat." They certainly were in the context we are speaking of here. Official Soviet terminology, apparently starting at least from Lenin but I haven’t checked this thoroughly, divided the proletariat into rural proletarians (in Russian селские пролетарии) and urban proletarians (городские пролетарии). In any event, in colloquial contexts the word serves handily to refer to a life of rather menial trudging wherever it’s lived.
    - bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
      Of course Lenin had an interest in selling the idea that everyone is actually proletariat. In reality by Marx's definition, proletariat are those who don't own the means of production (and are therefore stuck in earning by selling their labour), whereas farmers at least until the NEP died, mostly owned their own farms which means they did own the means of their production, which is also why farmers, or virtually everyone in the USSR outside the cities hated the communists. But I got your point.
      - PrismCrystal 2y ago
        [flagged]
  - nl 2y ago
    > nearly everyone in the USSR was a farmer, so not proletariat and not communist This statement has a number of flaws. > nearly everyone in the USSR was a farmer True during the early years, but after WW2 changed rapidly (in line with the West). [1] shows rural population percentage dropped from 67% in 1939 to 56% in 1956, and it rapidly decreased after that. [2] is female specific but by 1975 under 1/3 were working in agriculture. In addition, everyone other than the actual owner of the land was considered "The Agricultural Proletariat". Engels wrote [3] about this in 1845 well before the establishment of the Soviet Union. > so not proletariat As seen above, this doesn't follow especially after the establishment of collective farming where everyone were considered workers. [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/1233891 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1233891 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_working_class#Women https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_working_class#Women [3] https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/ch12.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-w...
    - bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
      > As seen above, this doesn't follow especially after the establishment of collective farming where everyone were considered workers. Correct! Farmers owned the landed, the communists came and stole it from them - sorry "collectivized" it - and so made it worse for the farmers turned proletariat. So you understand that farmers hated communists.
beepbooptheory 2y ago
You really cracked the case here wow!
aprilfoo 2y ago
> OF COURSE it was popular with communists A long story short: it wasn't. Tarkovsky suffered from censorship and lack of support for the production of non propaganda movies, like many others. > Edit: just started reading the movie's Wikipedia page Watching movies and reading about them before commenting on them is usually a good starting point.
dang 2y ago
Starting an ideological flamewar like this is abusive on HN. Since we've already asked you not to do this, I've banned the account. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

aredox 2y ago

I happened recently with my girlfriend and I after watching The boy and the Heron, the last Miyazaki. I was disoriented, trying to make heads or tails of what I just saw, and she was completely happy of all the poetry and symbolism she just saw. Some art pieces are not meant to be overanalyzed. They are meant to be felt.

wetback 2y ago
I had the same experience with the movie. Even though I knew up front about Isao Takahata’s passing, I struggled to make all the imagery fit into my expectations of a “coherent” story. At one point I just had to let go of my search of any overarching analogy, and just enjoyed the fireworks.
yzydserd 2y ago
The oft quoted phrase: “writing about music is like dancing about architecture”.