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esteeb.art · @esteeb.art@bridge.neodb.net

Rated The Great Dictator 10/10

I dunno why I didn't watch this sooner. Absolute banger. I'd only ever seen the last speech but the whole rest of the movie great. Funny, sad, angry, audacious, and surprisingly hopeful. I might be stealing this from someone else maybe but if I am I agree with whoever it was and I'm sorry I forgot I heard this from them. But if there's one nit I can pick, it's that despite having Chaplin play his Hitler analog works on so many levels, it almost doesn't. ALMOST. And there's really nothing that could have been done about it, because just by virtue of Chaplin's taste, his skill as a performer, actor and writer, he inadvertently makes Hitler appear almost more refined than he deserved even while he's basically roasting him the whole movie. Though maybe it's the difference in times? Our current wave of fascism is so much dumber, so much tackier. Like there are multiple instances of Chaplin as Hitler playing the piano. I can't imagine Donald Trump having hobbies or skills or any sort of refinement whatsoever. It's not uncommon for political comedies to feature heavy stuff like open combat, state violence, internment camps, or even a lynching but very few I've ever seen take those as an opportunity to do a gag but still manage to keep the impact of the atrocity feel tangible. I dunno really good movie.

#lsc11 #lsc11 week7 #movie

Published 2026-02-18 00:00 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere