People are always saying they're afraid the United States might be "going fascist" or – if their political history is a little fuzzy – that it's already fascist. For a country that's so preoccupied with avoiding fascism, our citizens sure do love to imagine fascist futures full of authoritarianism, genocidal purges of "undesirable" groups, and militaristic fundies of various stripes. Goose-stepping is entertaining, dammit! Just to prove I'm right, here are five of the most noteworthy fascist future flicks . . .
5. Roller Blade (1986) – This little-seen gem is from unfortunately deceased Z-movie master Donald G. Jackson, whose heroes wear shiny skates and leg warmer armor in a grim future ruled by a theocracy of skater nuns (but confusingly, they actually zoom around on roller skates, not blades). Contains the brilliant line "Thou must skatest or diest." Jackson also made the "zen movie" The Legend of the Roller Blade Seven (1991), which had two sequels and was the first of many films he directed without scripts. Sam Raimi calls him an inspiration.
4. The Handmaid's Tale (1990) – Volker Schlondorff's adaptationof Margaret Atwood's classic feminist apocalypse novel is bothpolitically interesting and action-packed, which is an unusualcombination. In a future North America, where radiation has renderedmost women infertile, a right-wing Christian government has taken overand turned fertile women into slaves. These fertile "handmaids" servein the homes of men whose wives are infertile, and bear children untilthey die. Our heroine, who is owned by a governmentmucky-muck, plots to escape from her baby-making prison with a kind(and hunky) male servant.
3. A Scanner Darkly (2006) – Philip K. Dick's novel of totalgovernment surveillance and control of the populace viapersonality-splitting drugs is handled beautifully by stoner auteur
Richard Linklater. The hallucinatory visuals come to life viaLinklater's trademark hyperreal animation style. Plus there arerambling, paranoid monologues from druggy actors Robert Downey, Jr. andWoody Harrelson. And star Keanu Reeves gives a believably mentally-degenerated performance as a drug-addicted cop ordered to place himself under surveillance.
2. Max Headroom (1987-88) – OK, so it was a TV show, but this tale of an investigative TV journalist who spawns an AI version of himself during a car accident is one of the best depictions ever of a totalitarian, media-controlled future. Edison Carter, the journalist, struggles to expose corruption as a reporter for the ratings-obsessed Network 23, while his alter-ego Max Headroom bounces from computer to computer as a trickster AI who sometimes helps, sometimes hinders Carter's search for truth. Shadowy scenes of network executives plotting to control the populace are contrasted with subversive punk rock grampas in this fantastic and sadly short-lived series.
1. Brazil (1985) – Probably this dreamy, romantic, depressing movie is best watched in high school, when it will come across as entirely deep instead of only intermittently so. But the fact is that this movie's representation of a dismal future of government/corporate control is one of the most visually thrilling and just plain cool movies about fascism ever made. It's the tale of a dreamy minor bureaucrat who becomes a subversive for love under the shadow of a torture-loving government trying to stamp out "terrorism." Half-satire, half-melodrama, this film is unforgettable – years after you watch it, you'll find yourself remembering director Terry Gilliam's strange obsession with ducts and all-too-believable evocation of a government squeezing all the joy out of the world in an effort to stamp out subversion.
