The Myopia of Political Films

Looking at the message of One Battle After Another by examining Parasite, Civil War, and Eddington through Jean-Luc Godard's political film theory

Author

Jesse Raub
November 10, 2025

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The piece below was originally drafted for a Bright Wall/Dark Room pitch call.

One Political Critique After Another

Searching for political truth in art is always a losing game. Art itself is designed to inspire, to invoke, to conjure feelings through experiences—but ultimately, any political message is limited to the perspective of the artist who produced the work. One Battle After Another is one of those movies that struggles with the burden created around it. As a piece of filmmaking, it’s truly impressive, awe-inspiring stuff. But art is always refracted through our own personal lenses; human experience dictates how art is interpreted, and the only other tool we have is other people’s framing conventions. For example, it’s easy for me to leave One Battle After Another with my emotions supercharged, its thriller ending still buzzing in my feet. The movie’s shortcomings as political dogma, however, aren’t top of mind until I read other people’s interpretations. In a way, it’s a movie that leaves me unsure of what to think. The clear message seems to be that violent revolutionary action is a losing game, but boots-on-the-ground organizing and peaceful protest are righteous ways to fight the system. Three steps back, looking at it like an impressionist painting, One Battle After Another has generally agreeable politics for most people leaning left. 

Writer Jason England did not experience the movie the same way I did. Reading his analysis of Paul Thomas Anderson’s shortcomings in the movie’s portrayal of race made me wonder about how true-blue political analysis can easily dismantle most movies that attempt to be political. But it also made me wonder about how political film theory in general, and how we assess what each film is truly saying. When I tried to look back at political films that felt successful, the best example I could remember was one that was inherently covert in its political messaging: Parasite. 

In 2019’s Parasite, the film’s message is clarified in a single defining moment. Lying on the couch in their modern mansion, Park Dong-ik (Lee Sun-kyun), the patriarch of the rich family, complains about a smell. Similar to an old radish or a boiled rag, the smell plagues him as he lies on the couch with his wife. It’s the smell of the family’s new driver that “powers through the back seat,” and he mentions you can also smell it on the subway. The smell that Dong-ik is describing, even though he can’t quite put his finger on it, is poverty itself. As the film cuts to underneath the couch, the Park family’s driver, Kim Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho), sniffs the collar of his shirt, framed in profile. He endures the entire conversation while hiding with his son and daughter, his eyes closed in shame. Throughout the early stages of the movie, there’s a sense that his children blame Ki-taek for their family’s poverty. In this moment, it’s clear that no amount of hard work will simply launch the family into the middle class. Their very existence, for the wealthy, is offensive. This is the moment that Parasite transitions from the personal to the political. This is where Jean-Luc Godard would say that Parasite is a film that was made politically. 

In his 1970 essay What Is to Be Done?, Godard lays out two fundamentals: 

1. We must make political films.

2. We must make films politically. 

A political manifesto, the essay is laid out into numbered points, with the crux of What Is to Be Done? is highlighted in points 10 and 11:

10. To carry out 1 is to remain a being of the bourgeois class.

11. To carry out 2 is to take up a proletarian class position.

The framing for Godard is simple, but the piece captures a snapshot of a previous conception of the world. Rife with Maoist doctrine, What Is to Be Done? suggests a world that is still susceptible to revolution. It imagines that the gulf between the Marx-defined bourgeoisie and proletariat would steadily increase until the pressure becomes intolerable. It does not, however, predict a world in which the material signifiers of wealth (cars, computers, smartphones) become attainable enough for the average worker that the borders of the middle class blur beyond recognition. That is to say: who needs revolution when there’s food on the table and Godard films streaming at home? 

The essay was written just a year after Godard released his avant-garde documentary British Sounds in theaters, which mostly overlays readings from The Communist Manifesto over images of car factory workers, a naked woman walking around a house, and student protestors before ending with images of fists punching through the Union Jack. Originally, Godard and co-director Jean-Henri Roger wanted British Sounds to be shown on TV in Britain. It’s not hard to imagine the filmmakers betting the film would foment direct action and change if only it were to be viewed by the common man. In 2025, it’s hard to ignore that British Sounds is easily streamable and has only 5,851 views since it was uploaded in 2019. 

14. To carry out 1 is to make BRITISH SOUNDS.

15. To carry out 2 is to struggle for the showing of BRITISH SOUNDS on English television.

While it’s clear that Godard felt British Sounds would connect with the average UK worker, it’s hard to imagine someone voluntarily watching student groups making political posters set to Beatles parodies after a day’s work at the factory. Point 11 suggests that Point 15 is taking up the proletarian class position, but there’s a question of whose idea of a proletarian class position it takes up. The disconnect between what the Marxist intellectual class wants for the common worker and what the common worker actually wants has helped shape our political landscape for the past 55 years. Namely, intellectual political theory rarely has an audience outside of intellectual debate.

Bong shows a better understanding of his audience with Parasite. After winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes, it earned $258 million at the international box office before sweeping the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film. As it should have. Parasite is a taut, engaging, and beautifully made thriller with a truly shocking twist. Audiences raved, and word of mouth led Parasite to be the fifth highest-grossing box office in the United States for a foreign language movie. Fitting, as Bong’s comments backstage at the Golden Globes specifically called out the United States as one of his targets when making Parasite: “This film is about the rich and poor and about capitalism—and the U.S. is the heart of capitalism.” By making his movie politically, Bong was able to engage a massive audience with a story anchored in systemic inequality. But he was also able to update the struggle for modern times. 

In 2019, the world of Parasite is a world in which those wealth signifiers are not just common but are necessary for life. At the start of the movie, the Kim family loses access to the free Wi-Fi they’ve been siphoning, dramatically threatening their only source of revenue: a one-time gig folding pizza boxes. The mother of the family, Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin), must be able to receive a WhatsApp message on her smartphone to coordinate the work. Later, when son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-sik) is given the chance by his wealthy friend to take up a tutoring gig, his sister Ki-jung (Park So-dam) needs computer access (provided at a gaming café) so she can forge an education certificate for him. As Ki-taek prepares to take over as driver for the Park family, he bluffs his way through multiple dealership test drives with Ki-woo to ensure he’s up to date on car technologies. In Godard’s world, lack of access to these modern necessities would frame the Kim family as the true proletariat, ready to take up arms with their comrade in revolution. But Parasite director Bong Joon-ho has a different approach. Yes, the Kim family lives in absolute poverty, but the signifiers of wealth feel achievable if they can just scheme their way into a higher status. In short, the Kim family doesn’t long for revolution: they long for class ascendancy—so much so that they’re willing to fight their fellow workers for it. 

18. To carry out 1 is to describe the wretchedness of the world.

19. To carry out 2 is to show the people in struggle.

Godard might have missed the mark himself with British Sounds, but there is some wisdom in how he categorizes both types of films. “Political films” rarely inspire discourse in their audience, while films made politically push viewers to ask themselves difficult and revelatory questions. They might not bring revolution as Godard hoped for in its concrete definition, but films made politically have a stronger tendency to challenge audiences and their preconceived ideas about the world. In America, as we noticed in 2024’s campaign shift to influencer podcasts, one’s media diet can have an outsized influence on their political motivation. It might be silly to say that watching a movie can change the world, but as the US shifts further into a realm of low-information voters, it’s hard to argue that any media consumption is an entirely passive enterprise. That is to say, films made politically, as a steady part of one’s media consumption, do exert influence in a society built on electoral politics. Godard’s avant-garde documentary didn’t spark revolution, but the wrong movie at the wrong time might change someone’s vote. 

The world Parasite describes, for the most part, is anything but wretched. While the film occasionally checks in on the Kim family in their semi-basement apartment, audiences spend most of their time in the Park family’s famous architect-designed house. The home is clean, modern, humungous, and well-stocked: there’s plenty of plum syrup in the pantry and the ingredients to make ram-don with sirloin seemingly at all times. What Parasite does best is show the struggle of the Kim family: in the beginning, they have to ration their food, they can’t afford cell phone service, and after the pizza box folding gig, Ki-woo begs the delivery driver for a chance at a part-time job with the pizzeria. Their semi-basement apartment has a stink bug infestation so bad that Ki-taek tells the family to leave the windows open when city workers are fumigating the streets with the hope that their home might also benefit. Showing this struggle gives audiences an immediate impression of the desperation that capitalism creates, making Parasite a film that was made politically, according to Godard’s theory. Not every movie is this effective, however. 

Civil War (2024, Garland) and Eddington (2025, Aster) are two recent entries that focus instead on the wretchedness of the world. Both fit more neatly into Godard’s classification of “political films,” in contrast to Parasite. Both tell personal stories entrenched in a political landscape compared to Parasite’s political story told through a personal framing, and both movies are more interested in portraying a dire political environment than taking a stance on how that landscape came to be or how its characters struggle through it. 

Civil War, in particular, is a blank slate open to anyone’s political interpolation. Set against an authoritarian federal government under siege by secessionist state alliances, Civil War is mainly a story about a group of journalists putting the scoop above everything else. By refusing to define the opposing ideologies in Civil War, Alex Garland refuses to engage with the real world audiences live in. He doesn’t depict the people in political struggle. The end result is a movie that has more questions about the role of journalism during war than questions about how modern politics created the conflict in the first place. Because of this, the war in Civil War exists in a vacuum. The America it shows is as real as any fantasy realm: The conflict on screen could be any conflict anywhere. It’s story of ethics in war journalism plays the same in the US as it would in Middle Earth—though there are arguments to be made that even Middle Earth has clearer political mapping to America’s current state than Civil War does. 

Similarly, Eddington’s main focus is on Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) and his fears of being cuckolded, even as the politicized world around him starts to collapse. As the early events of the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests break out in his small New Mexico town, Joe can’t stop fretting about his wife running away with a handsome and charismatic far-right cult leader. Ari Aster’s vision for the movie lacks political conviction—just like his characters in the film. Racial justice protestors are treated as misguided youths, the liberal mayor is a hypocrite, the far-right are grifters, and Sheriff Joe’s center-right politics are formed entirely through personal grievances. Though Eddington is the most blatant reflection of the landscape of 2020 we might have on screen, Aster is seemingly unconcerned with discussing the weight those events had on the larger population. Instead, they serve as catalysts for Joe’s descent into madness. Because of this, Joe’s struggles could very well have been any version of civil unrest at any time in American history. It’s hard to imagine how Eddington would be any different if it were set against the astroturfed Tea Party movement of 2010 or the swine flu pandemic of 2009. In short, Eddington is a political film, but it is not a film made politically. It’s difficult to imagine crowds leaving the theater being inspired to examine their relationship with the systems of governance that drive their daily lives. It’s easier to imagine them worried about their spouse’s close work friend, instead.

While Civil War places its politics in a vacuum, Eddington wants its political landscape to adhere to a true-to-life depiction of Spring 2020. It wants to be a perfect snapshot of political tumult, and in a lot of ways, Eddington captures that time period better than any film or TV show. But Godard would argue that this is a flaw in Aster’s vision:

21. To carry out 1 is to give a complete view of events in the name of truth in itself.

22. To carry out 2 is not to fabricate over-complete images of the world in the name of relative truth.

Godard’s prescriptions for how to “make films politically” are rooted in the power of fiction. America saw the immense power of Uncle Tom’s Cabin shifting views on slavery when it was released in 1852 (though the book has been rightly criticized for generating racial stereotypes in the ensuing 150 years or so). By pursuing relative truth, the novelist, playwright, or filmmaker is able to clearly state their perspective through their work rather than concern themselves with adherence to fact. That is to say, any message the artist wants to pass along is more powerful as an allegory. In Parasite, the fictional Kim family elicits more sympathy than a real-world Kim family would. Fictional murder is a point of consideration; real-life murder is nothing but tragedy. 

The Kim family’s actions in getting the Park family’s driver and housekeeper fired are framed initially as a lark. Viewers celebrate their schemes to assume all open service positions (the Jessica Jingle becoming a popular meme online, as evidence) because Bong shoots these scenes to highlight the cleverness of Ki-woo and Ki-jung. Framed like a fun heist movie, the Kim family delicately shaves peach fuzz into vials to trigger the allergies of housekeeper Moon-gwang (Lee Jung-eun), captures her in an emergency room selfie, and plants a hot-sauce-stained napkin in the trash to frame her as a tuberculosis disease vector. When the Park family leaves for a camping trip, the Kim family indulges in the luxuries of the house: they sample expensive liquor, feast on the pantry, take lengthy baths in the jacuzzi tub, and read books on the sunny lawn. They even fantasize about becoming part of the Park extended family if Ki-woo’s budding romance with Park daughter Da-hye (Jung Ji-so) leads to marriage. 

Bong wants audiences to feel the Kim family’s joy in this moment. The contrast between Ki-taek having to pick moldy bits off the butt of a loaf of bread and the family sprawled out in the Park’s living room with empty bowls lining the coffee table is stark. The turn, then, becomes all the more devastating. Moon-gwang, it turns out, was hiding her husband from loan sharks in the Park family’s basement for the last four years. Initially, Moon-gwang pleads for solidarity with Chun-sook: “As fellow members of the needy, please don’t.” But as soon as the Kim family’s deceptions are revealed, both parties immediately turn on each other. Godard might have imagined a world in which the proletariat recognizes each other’s struggle, taking up a shared cause. Bong, on the other hand, showcases the reality of post-revolutionary politics on display: the systemic oppression of capitalism is designed around only the few succeeding. It’s easier, then, to box out the competition for your shot at the brass ring than it is to band together for systemic change. 

The phrase “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” means that existing as a consumer is existing as an active participant in an oppressive system. It’s also a phrase that neatly describes the Kim family’s trajectory. The more they compromise their morality to get ahead, the more they are seen physically consuming on screen. But Bong is careful in how he frames their situation. The Kim family struggled through food insecurity; now they eat like kings. Their want for a higher-class life isn’t based on selfishness; it’s based on necessity. Their desperation is palpable, their desire to protect their gains understandable. Viewers might question what could have gone differently. Could the Kim family and Moon-gwang come to an agreement and work together? Is there a version of Parasite that ends with an optimistic story about worker solidarity? Could the triple murder have been avoided? 

The title of the movie gives it away. No matter how the maligned servants might be able to hash out a non-aggression pact, the fact remains the same: both family units are living entirely off the largesse of the Park family’s wealth. At the beginning of the film, the Kim family’s poverty seems to make them the exception. The audience is sympathetic, but comfortable in what seems to be the “othering” of the family—especially as they get ahead. That flips when the truth about Moon-gwang’s situation is revealed. The rampant poverty of Seoul is broader than just one family. The indictment in Parasite is not one of personal choice when facing adversity; it’s of the system that creates such desperation in the first place. If audiences leave Parasite struggling with the moral question of what they would have done in the same scenario, mission accomplished. Bong avoids turning Parasite into a mortality play by forcing his characters into locked path positions. The outcome is unavoidable because the system has made it this way. 

37. To carry out 1 is only to open the eyes and the ears.

39. To carry out 2 is to be militant.

Godard’s perspective in What Is to Be Done? seems to represent the filmmaker’s internal struggles. In his conclusion, he suggests that to “make films politically” is a form of praxis, while making “political films” is part of maintaining the status quo. It’s hard to square where One Battle After Another fits into this framing. By making a crowd-pleasing big-budget thriller, it’s easy to say that Paul Thomas Anderson engages with audiences the way Bong Joon-ho does. That he was able to make his politics approachable, however loosely defined they are in the film. But it’s hard to imagine either Parasite or One Battle After Another being qualified as “militant,” and it’s hard to sympathize with Godard’s position on this subject when the missing Point 38 is considered:

38. To carry out 2 is to read the reports of comrade Kiang Tsing. 

As Mao Zedong’s wife and deputy director of the Central Culture Revolution Group, Jiang Qing was directly responsible for the violent upheaval of China’s Cultural Revolution, where radicals were encouraged to purge local offices of any political operators who were too sympathetic to capitalism—a period reported to have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens. It’s impossible to know what Godard personally knew of the Cultural Revolution outside of the propaganda created by the Chinese Communist Party, but in 2025, it’s easy to look back with a critical eye. Eventually, Godard eventually became disillusioned with his Maoist ideals of the late 60s and early 70s, leaving What Is to Be Done? as a historical artifact rather than a guide to filmmaking. 

Still, regardless of the flaws Godard’s theory was rooted in, the core of Godard’s argument in this essay lives on as a tool of analysis. Though his specific intent and sympathies may have been misguided, he’s not incorrect in analyzing how media can be impactful, and how political intent is important when inherent political bias seeps into art, no matter what. Bong Joon-ho’s modern approach to making a film politically seems to be aimed at making the most impact. He identifies systemic oppression, shows people in the struggle, but he refrains from prescribing a distinct solution. Where Godard was so sure he had an answer to society's ills, Bong Joon-ho, at least through his filmmaking, does not. 

In 2025, it’s difficult to watch political movies that refuse to engage with real-world politics. Every day is a struggle as the news brings more and more examples of how the current political structure of the United States is being eroded. But where One Battle After Another lands depends more on who is seeing it and why. When Greta Gerwig’s Barbie hit theaters, its general tone of promoting liberal feminism hit hard for its intended audiences while leaving many leftists wishing it went further. Similarly, One Battle After Another’s rampant support for defying militarized immigration enforcement likely has an outsized impact on some viewers, especially as ICE and Border Patrol have declared war on American cities. How many Chicagoans fighting back saw One Battle After Another? How did the movie impact their perspective? Was it inspiring? Did it give them a sense of courage that they needed? Or are Chicagoans simply just built different? It’s impossible to say. It’s easy to understand how One Battle After Another falls short for some viewers, but it’s also easy to point to vast audiences coming away from the movie feeling empowered to defy militarized fascist systems coming for your neighbors. Film might not spark a revolution, like Godard wanted, but the right film at the right time might be able to change someone’s heart. And that, if anything, is its own revolution.

Read

It’s rare these days that a book immediately kicks me in the teeth the moment I pick it up. Torrey Peters’ Stag Dance, however, hit me in a way I wasn’t expecting. A collection of shorter and longer stories, it bounces between speculative fiction, slice of life stuff, and horror-adjacent storytelling, all while letting its protagonists drown in a pool of their own charater flaws. Each story hits deep at pulling out the strands of attraction and desire from the mess of human emotion, with a single question seemingly driving the whole thing: what if you always made the wrong choice?

Watch

Vince Gilligan’s new show, featuring muse Rhea Seehorn, is fascinating. Like his other two TV hits, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Pluribus is less about the premise it’s presenting and more about how it plays out. Its central conceit isn’t too far off from other speculative fiction in books and TV, but that doens’t matter. What makes the show fascinating is how it’s made and how it examines the aftermath of its premise. The first episode tricks you into thinking it might be a horror show; it’s not. Watch the first two episodes, linger in Gilligan’s mid-shot framing and incredible blocking, and let the show wash over you.

Listen

The Velvet Teen made their name with a slightly smarter version of tender indie rock with their debut, and then they promptly squashed all momentum they might have had with 2004’s Elysium. Gone were the sensitive guitar pop tones of days past, replaced by overwrought, string-laden piano ballads. It’s a gorgeous, textured album that showed a mastery of songwriting and playing ability. Their follow-up, Cum Laude!, was even more of a departure. Somewhere between prog rock and EDM interpolated through a guitar band, Cum Laude! breaks every rule about the type of songs a band like this should be playing. With every vocal note run through a distorted megaphone, Cum Laude! felt engineered to alienate every one of the band’s early fans. In attempting to do so, The Velvet Teen created something truly undefinable and revolutionary that feels lost to a past era.

Consume

Cooking can be… tough. Especially with a chronic illness. When Madison’s Ha Long Bay reopened, we were grateful for another quick and affordable takeout option relatively close to our home. While their pho remains unbeatable for its price point and broth complexity, it’s their grilled meat and rice plates that have been a salvo for me as of late. Marinated chicken lightly grilled, served with nuoc cham, pickles, and rice. All for $13. I mean, what the fuck are we even doing here? It’s a veritable feast that costs less than a nice sandwich. Simple, relatively healthy, and easy to acquire. What a find.

Artwork by Ashley Elander Strandquist. You can view her illustration work here and check out her printing business here.