(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
With a name like "New Time", it is a good idea to celebrate the book's 500th anniversary Utopia by Thomas More, published in 1516. We do this with Norwegian exclusive premiere – only for our own readers – on the film Back to Utopia (directed by Fabio Wuytack).
Utopia (see essay) – inspired both communism and utopian socialism. It is about sharing, that the earth belongs to the people rather than private, about shorter working days, a better future and the development of a knowledgeable public. More regarded the state power of their time as the exploiters of the people, even if they said the opposite – not unlike how today's state or capitalist elites in a populist way deceive their voters and consumers. More worked for King Henry VIII, but was a man of faith and did not accept that the king would be the head of the Church. More was therefore sentenced to death for treason by hanging – only to be taken down alive, castrated and had his entrails torn out and burned before his own eyes, before he was beheaded. The head was boiled and put on a stake on the city bridge. The daughter Margaret – staged in the film while reading her father's book – bribed a guard and got hold of her head, which she hid so that it would not be thrown into the Thames. The loving daughter was later reportedly buried with her father's head in her hands.
In the movie Back to Utopia we follow the character Alexander – with allusion to Aleksander the great – a modern cynical businessman. He wants to look away, but his guilty conscience increases via the chapters "Gold & Values", "Common Land", "Private Property" and "Future Generations".
Actress John Hurts voice-over speaks in the background of Alexander about the humanist ideas in Utopia. To illustrate the powerful's thirst for gold, the film moves to Peru, where the government allows the illegal gold mines to remain unhindered, while protests are met with bullets and unemployment. We see Alexander cycling among large private country estates, before we hear Uganda's tribesmen tell us that the land belongs to its creator and the people, not private ones. In Mexico, indigenous peoples want to sell off property to buy new clothes and cars, but the village council is voting it down. And Chiapas Indians complain that the trees are being cut down – because the air cannot be stolen from them, the children say to the camera. Natural resources are sacred: water, air, earth and mountains are given to them by the Creator. We hear today's utopians wish for a better world. Alexander the exploiter sees what ecological damage he does to the earth when the film ends in Japan, where the radiation danger after the Fukushima accident will last for 30 years. Utopia's message is the idea of a new era. So could one get another world after the atomic bomb in Hiroshima? asks the film, and concludes that another world er possible.
New Age's editorial line, the struggle for ecology, peace and freedom, is also utopian, and is about maintaining the hiding places brave and free people can find. The utopia lies in the fact that the world's diverse and ethnic minorities and minorities must be allowed to live in peace for power. For example, the way American military veterans got on their knees this month and asked for forgiveness for how the Indians in the North Dakota reservation were treated, it was both about ecological risk with oil pipelines and the violence their ancestors had perpetrated against them.
Thomas More's daughter took care of the utopian's head. But whether or not Alexander took the utopian seriously, you have to watch the movie to decide.
See also Espen Hammers essay on Utopia.
You can find the film as a subscriber here .
