Word: fascistes
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Lawrence's fascinating tale gives a brief but detailed glimpse of the fascist and socialist movements in Sydney in 1922, a piece of history generally lost to the world because neither movement succeeded in the revolutions they tried to bring to the land down under...
...noted European revolutionary and poet, Somers is sought after by both factions to justify their ideas to the public. While he and his wife attempt to settle down so that he can write, his neighbors try to involve him in their fascist organization, offering him a ministry when the planned revolution is complete. Soon the socialists begin also to woo Somers, with the enticement of editorship of a socialist newspaper. His inner struggle to choose between the two provides Kangaroo with dramatic intensity...
...characters seem to be caricatures rather than real personalities. General Kangaroo (Hugh Keays-Byrne), for instance, is a one-dimensional fascist, a leader without compassion, love or warmth. He has no traits other than greed and we are left wondering why his devoted cultish followers would ever have taken him seriously...
...fascist elements pulling at Somers are insane and psychopathic. General Kangaroo announces at one point that he is having "an auction for the soul of Richard Somers." In another scene he demands Somers' unconditional love, which he says he deserves because he is a superior human being. The audience watches Kangaroo from Somers' eyes and cannot understand why Somers even considers this dangerous lunatic's offers, much less why he treats them as rational requests...
Fortunately, Extreme is spared a place in the fascist hall of fame by its own sheer stupidity. Characters constantly spew out little homespun bits of wisdom that are supposed to show how in touch with the real world they are but actually reveal how completely distant they are from even the most generous definition of sanity. Are we supposed to take Rip Torn seriously when he explains that "the federal government is nothing but a bunch of child molesters"? It is the saving grace of Extreme that even if we're supposed to accept these epigrams, we don't have...