Antifa - Schulter an Schulter, wo der Staat versagte

2024 | Documentary | Cinema 2024

This is a great little documentary about german antifa movements from the late-80s through the 90s.

It’s a strong film with lots of energy and tons of paraphrases for ‘and then we beat up the nazis’, which I think is beautiful.

The interviews - with activists from that time who talk about their direct involvements and actions in antifa movements and the often violent clashes with nazis and the pigs - are mostly great, the archival footage - which consists primarily of demonstrations, burning cars and trash cans, and other direct actions - is pretty great and I honestly could watch hours of stuff like that.

I also loved hearing about the antifa archives in berlin and the huge (inter)national efforts that went into cataloguing and identifying various fascist/nazi organizations and its members. Especially when you juxtapose their dedication and huge archive with the complete and utter failure and lack of initiative from the german state and its institutions. They still rely on the antifa archives cause they did nothing of substance to fight fascism.

And obviously, it’s message - be antifascist, organize, punch nazis - is great.

But I don’t think it’s perfect. First of all, it uses what seems to be AI upscaling for most of the archival footage which not only doesn’t look great, but is fundamentally wrong. There’s no place for AI in art. It’s not only anti-art, but also so incredibly damaging to the environment. More damaging than most things, actually.

Then, it ends with a song by a ‘leftist’ who is an outspoken zionist who proudly supports israel and its genocide against the palestinian people. Could’ve done without that.

And ultimately I feel like it lacks some depth. Obviously, it’s a film by leftists for leftists and I doubt that anyone believes that this is gonna reach far outside of those bubbles and circles. But it delivers basically zero context to anything, which isn’t necessarily a problem, but does a disservice to any deeper analytical look at it.

It lacks the wider political context its title - ‘wo der Staat versagte’ (where the state failed) - promises. There’s no dive into how and why the state failed and what role it played in the rise (and protection) of fascism. Issues like the failed denazification, the huge numbers of right-wing fascists in both police and military - fuck both of them anyways - and the wider and related ramifications of capitalism and german society all aren’t mentioned once.

It shows the direct action that took place in places where the state failed - and all power and praise to the people who stood up for what’s right and faced the nazis head-on - but it never probes much deeper into the failures and designed shortcomings of the state and system.

But it does dedicate a minute or two to the way even leftist circles aren’t free of sexism and patriarchy. That’s not nearly enough and it doesn’t go into the action they took to combat that, but I think that’s important and giving the two women space to talk about these issues - however brief it unfortunately was - is great. The left still has the problem of sexism and all related issues. Combating patriarchy is just as important as combating fascism - and white supremacy for that matter. And capitalism above all, obviously. While they do draw a connection between fascism and misogyny, they don’t come full circle and connect it all to capitalism.

While the last couple paragraphs make this all sound rather negative, I really did like this. A lot even. I think it has obvious shortcomings, but it’s a great time-document. It’s energy transports and it is a decent reminder that nothing much has actually changed. In times of a global rise of right-wing ideologies anf fascism, this is a good reminder to have solidarity, to be vigilant and to be active.

2024 | Documentary | Cinema 2024

This is a great little documentary about german antifa movements from the late-80s through the 90s.

It’s a strong film with lots of energy and tons of paraphrases for ‘and then we beat up the nazis’, which I think is beautiful.

The interviews - with activists from that time who talk about their direct involvements and actions in antifa movements and the often violent clashes with nazis and the pigs - are mostly great, the archival footage - which consists primarily of demonstrations, burning cars and trash cans, and other direct actions - is pretty great and I honestly could watch hours of stuff like that.

I also loved hearing about the antifa archives in berlin and the huge (inter)national efforts that went into cataloguing and identifying various fascist/nazi organizations and its members. Especially when you juxtapose their dedication and huge archive with the complete and utter failure and lack of initiative from the german state and its institutions. They still rely on the antifa archives cause they did nothing of substance to fight fascism.

And obviously, it’s message - be antifascist, organize, punch nazis - is great.

But I don’t think it’s perfect. First of all, it uses what seems to be AI upscaling for most of the archival footage which not only doesn’t look great, but is fundamentally wrong. There’s no place for AI in art. It’s not only anti-art, but also so incredibly damaging to the environment. More damaging than most things, actually.

Then, it ends with a song by a ‘leftist’ who is an outspoken zionist who proudly supports israel and its genocide against the palestinian people. Could’ve done without that.

And ultimately I feel like it lacks some depth. Obviously, it’s a film by leftists for leftists and I doubt that anyone believes that this is gonna reach far outside of those bubbles and circles. But it delivers basically zero context to anything, which isn’t necessarily a problem, but does a disservice to any deeper analytical look at it.

It lacks the wider political context its title - ‘wo der Staat versagte’ (where the state failed) - promises. There’s no dive into how and why the state failed and what role it played in the rise (and protection) of fascism. Issues like the failed denazification, the huge numbers of right-wing fascists in both police and military - fuck both of them anyways - and the wider and related ramifications of capitalism and german society all aren’t mentioned once.

It shows the direct action that took place in places where the state failed - and all power and praise to the people who stood up for what’s right and faced the nazis head-on - but it never probes much deeper into the failures and designed shortcomings of the state and system.

But it does dedicate a minute or two to the way even leftist circles aren’t free of sexism and patriarchy. That’s not nearly enough and it doesn’t go into the action they took to combat that, but I think that’s important and giving the two women space to talk about these issues - however brief it unfortunately was - is great. The left still has the problem of sexism and all related issues. Combating patriarchy is just as important as combating fascism - and white supremacy for that matter. And capitalism above all, obviously. While they do draw a connection between fascism and misogyny, they don’t come full circle and connect it all to capitalism.

While the last couple paragraphs make this all sound rather negative, I really did like this. A lot even. I think it has obvious shortcomings, but it’s a great time-document. It’s energy transports and it is a decent reminder that nothing much has actually changed. In times of a global rise of right-wing ideologies anf fascism, this is a good reminder to have solidarity, to be vigilant and to be active.