User:Mihail Bakalov/Trimester 2/READING, WRITING AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES/Essay ideology

Ënjoy poverty aims on the issue of documenting some of the main problems in Kongo. The movie is insisting that it provides transperrancy on the issues, objectively presents it and provides an experimental solution describing the idea of poverty as a commodity. Although there are certain layers of subjectivity. In his work Renzo is the filmmaker(artist), also is a journalist, who acts as a narrator, but also plays as an actor. So all these parts played by him introduce quite a sophistication which confuses the viewer about Renzo's true self. He looses objectivity with implaying the cynical reason which takes over of him. Renzo insists with sharp uncomfortable questions playing with his arrogance and vanity, he abuses of his distance. Acting the same way as the press agent/photographer/plantation owner with no result for the african people. The film as a representation of reality in an eternal loop of our arrogance upon the other.

In the Act of killing the director deals with the concept of objectivity in a different way. In comparrison to Enjoy poverty there is no external narator. Letting the gangsters reanact their own past so the viewer can see their previous doing and their present thoughts on them. The surrealistic parts of the film shows another representation of reality trought the subjectivity of the director. The ideology of this political regime is making use of the gangsters.Individuals who oppose to the regime are not perceived as the people.The people who conform, they are mere subjects to the will of the Big Other. Surpressing enemy is a duty. Gangsters are people who work outside the system, but they were the law also. Through ideology, these afwul facts, events and crimes are seen as 'natural', inevitable and part of history. And this same ideology states that not everything true should be made public. Another representation of this false consciousness is that Panascania military youth glorifies all its soldiers as heroes.

All though Renzo Martins in his film reveals the cynical reason where one knows the falsehood very well, one is well aware of a particular interest hidden behind an ideological universality he falls into the cynical reason ass well. And he goes further and even takes a kick out of it. He is doing it to create the autonomy of his piece, which provides him the ability to deal with it self while its dealing with the outside world also. So just trying to provide a solution is enough sufficietly. It doesn't matter because he achieves his goal. Renzo Martins overidentifies with the idea that poverty is a comodity. Its a similliar situation to the captain from Full metal jackets. Zizek states that people fall for a belive in a conditional mode, which blinds them, like Renzo. This cynical reason inscribes it self in reality by distorting it. The problem is similliar with cinema in the sence that people know its directed and they still fall for it. Although totalitarian ideology has lost its faith from its authors, in the act of killing its still recognisable. Although the social situation has changed the system is still fed around past events. With the cynical reason leaves untouched the fundamental level of ideological fantasy, the level on which ideology structures the social reality itself.