The fierce political divisions of the 1970s and 1980s sometimes seem a long way away from our own, more apolitical age; and it's this that makes 'Lefites', a collection of three snapshots from that time, so fascinating. The first film deals with the squatters' movement, which was not really about housing per se, but rather about undermining capitalism by directly challenging the social order. The second film deals the women's movement, which progressed from simple feminism to a creed based on "political lesbianism", where men were the enemy and separatism the goal. The third film, the story of the failed left-wing newspaper 'News on Sunday', is entertaining but more generic - it could be the tale of any failed business, with bad management, ego wars and misplaced ambitions, except for the fact that those ambitions were rooted in the same left wing beliefs sampled elsewhere in the series. What one notices is how most of the protagonists are still capable of giving highly cogent explanations of their beliefs, in spite of the fact that these are now widely ridiculed. Far from appearing as nut-cases, they come across as articulate and rational. Perhaps what they lack/lacked is an ability to see things in a wider, more balanced perspective - but the idea that "balance" is a concept defined by those who have power was central to their analysis, so this argument is maybe not as compelling as it seems. And us moderns, to whom their idealism and aggression seem very distant, is forced to concede that we accept things that in the past, others dared to challenge.
I still see myself as a bit of a "lefty", but I don't think I would have enjoyed living in the society that the participants in this series (and in the events it explores) might have created if they'd have had the chance. But in a world so full of injustice, we've lost something from the death of such radical creeds.
I still see myself as a bit of a "lefty", but I don't think I would have enjoyed living in the society that the participants in this series (and in the events it explores) might have created if they'd have had the chance. But in a world so full of injustice, we've lost something from the death of such radical creeds.
