Marx Reloaded

Marx Reloaded
Directed by	Jason Barker
Produced by	Jason Barker Irene Höfer Andreas Schroth
Written by	Jason Barker
Starring	Jason Barker Michael Hardt Antonio Negri Nina Power Jacques Rancière Peter Sloterdijk Alberto Toscano Slavoj Žižek Ivan Nikolic
Music by	Markus Rieger
Editing by	Nebojsa Andric Stevan Djordjevic Carsten Piefke
Studio	Films Noirs Medea Film ZDF
Distributed by	Arte
Release date(s)	April 11, 2011 (2011-04-11) (Germany)
Running time	52 minutes
Country	German
Language	English French German

Marx Reloaded is a 2011 German documentary film written and directed by the British writer and theorist Jason Barker. Featuring interviews with several well-known philosophers, the film aims to examine the relevance of Karl Marx's ideas in relation to the global economic and financial crisis of 2008–09.^[1][2][3][4]

Background

According to the film’s website, “Marx Reloaded … examines the relevance of German socialist and philosopher Karl Marx's ideas for understanding the global economic and financial crisis of 2008–09” and further asks, in the context of an alleged revival of Marxist thinking, whether “communism might provide the solution to the growing economic and environmental challenges facing the planet”.^[5]

Film

Marx Reloaded features interviews with several well-known philosophers, among them those often associated with Marxism and Communist ideas, including John Gray, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Nina Power, Jacques Rancière, Peter Sloterdijk, Alberto Toscano and Slavoj Žižek.^[2][4] The film also includes animation scenes with Marx trapped in a surreal world resembling the 1999 science fiction-action film The Matrix, which starred Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne. In one such animated scene Marx (Jason Barker) encounters Leon Trotsky (Ivan Nikolic) in a pastiche of the scene in The Matrix in which Fishburne's character Morpheus first meets Reeves' character Neo.

Reception

Marx Reloaded had its TV premiere on Arte on 11 April and was repeated on 20 April. The film was subsequently broadcast on the Romanian television channel B1 TV on 12 August 2011,^[6] followed by a studio debate involving political analyst Dinu Flămând, journalist Cristian Tudor Popescu and writer Vasile Ernu.

Yongjune Park, Jason Barker and Taek-Gwang Lee at DMZ Docs 2011.

On 25 September 2011 the film was screened (out of competition) at the 2011 DMZ Korean International Documentary Film Festival.^[7] The screening was followed by a panel discussion involving writer-director Jason Barker, Professor Taek-Gwang Lee of Kyung Hee University and Yongjune Park, the editor of Indigo, an English-language Korean humanities magazine.^[7] Both the film and director^[8] were the subject of national press coverage in the Hankook Ilbo.

On 3 October 2011 the film had its Serbian premiere at the Centre for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade,^[9] with further screenings planned in the same venue on 20, 21 and 24 October.^[10]

In an interview with the British blog New Left Project writer-director Jason Barker revealed that there were plans to screen the film at the Marx Memorial Library in late 2011.^[11]

See also

• Karl Marx in film

References

1. ^ "Marx Reloaded". german-documentaries.de. http://www.german-documentaries.de/films/43892. Retrieved June 06, 2011. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Peer Schmidt (April 8, 2011). "Falsche Freunde (German)". Junge Welt. http://www.jungewelt.de/2011/04-08/017.php. Retrieved June 06, 2011. 
3. ^ Michael Siegmund (January 22, 2009). "Marx reloaded (German)". Zeit. http://www.zeit.de/2009/05/Widerspruch-05. Retrieved June 06, 2011. 
4. ^ ^{a b} "Marx in der Matrix (German)". Der Tagesspiegel. April 11, 2011. http://www.tagesspiegel.de/medien/marx-in-der-matrix/4045006.html. Retrieved June 06, 2011. 
5. ^ "Marx Reloaded". marxreloaded.com. http://www.marxreloaded.com/film.html. Retrieved June 06, 2011. 
6. ^ "Special B1 prezintă documentarul Întoarcerea lui Marx". B1 TV. August 12, 2011. http://www.b1.ro/stiri/eveniment/special-b1-prezinta-documentarul-intoarcerea-lui-marx-astazi-de-la-ora-21-00-9422.html. Retrieved August 16, 2011. 
7. ^ ^{a b} "Marx Reloaded". DMZ Docs. http://dmzdocs.com/program/mo_view.php?index=152. Retrieved September 01, 2011. 
8. ^ "Marx in fashion". Hankook Ilbo. http://news.hankooki.com/lpage/culture/201109/h2011092520523986330.htm. Retrieved September 30, 2011. 
9. ^ "Premijera filma Marx Reloaded". October 2, 2011. http://www.danubeogradu.rs/2011/10/premijera-filma-marx-reloaded. Retrieved October 18, 2011. 
10. ^ "Marx Reloaded Premijera". October 2, 2011. http://www.czkd.org/programi.php?id=470&lang=sr. Retrieved October 18, 2011. 
11. ^ "Marx Enters the Matrix". New Left Project. May 26, 2011. http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/marx_enters_the_matrix. Retrieved June 09, 2011. 

External links

• Official website
• Marx Reloaded at the Internet Movie Database
• Marx Reloaded Review at Der Tagesspiegel (German site)
• Marx Reloaded Review at The Original Sonic Truth blog
• Marx Reloaded trailer at YouTube
• Marx Reloaded blog (Korean site)