The Ministry of Film – Details, episodes & analysis

Robin and Carolina are joined by writer and former British Army soldier Matthew Palmer to discuss the best (and hammiest) film about Napoleon Bonaparte.

Politics include: everything you needed to know about the egomaniac, manipulative, completely genius character of Bonaparte; how Wellington was a massive dick, but so was everyone else; the nuts story behind how the film came into existence, and how it literally couldn't be made today; and of course the politics of the battlefield at Waterloo.

Plus some of the best one-liners committed to film in the history of cinema.

Hold on to your horses: it's going to be a good one.

Need more Bonaparte in your life? Check some of these monumental works - there are many, many, many others

• 'Napoleon the Great' by Andrew Roberts
• 'Napoleon: the Myth of the Saviour' by Jean Tulard
• 'The Greatest Movie Never Made: Kubrik's Napoleon vs Bondarchuk's Waterloo' by Matthew Shadbolt

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Robin and Carolina join the wonderful Lily Austin and James Brailsford from the Groovy Movies podcast for a discussion on the most swoony, heartachy British film of all time, Brief Encounter (1945). 

Politics include: the very universal feeling of having to say no to the thing you want most; the class politics of being able to cheat on your partner if you're working class but not if you're middle class; how director David Lean having six wives is actually pretty relevant here; and how arguably the most romantic film of all time was shot during the Blitz in WWII, and was all the better for it.

Check out Groovy Movies on:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• or wherever you get your podcasts!

They're also on Instagram and TikTok, so check them out there!

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Carolina and Robin talk about Spirited Away, Japan's most successful film of all time, and likely one of the best films about life in a ghost bathhouse.

Politics include: how said bathhouse is maybe a metaphor for oppression, but also a really lovely-looking place; the post-80s economic bubble haze in Japan; and a very cool radish ghost.

Continue the reverie:

• *That* review of Spirited Away by Nigel Andrews from the FT
• A Youtube love letter to Ghibli, with an interview with the man himself
• What Hayao Miyazaki really thinks of AI (it's not pretty)

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Robin and Carolina discuss the Wizard of Oz, the most-watched film of all time, and likely the children's film with the most religious, LGBTQ+ and feminist theories around it.

Politics include: how Dorothy is the ultimate feminist, queer queen, how the yellow brick road may be a metaphor for the gold standard (?!) and how you can genuinely spot a bit of Plato's Republic in this fantasy musical from 80 years ago.

More wizarding nerdery, just for you:

• A runthrough of the (completely mental) making of The Wizard of Oz
• The three Witches are feminist heroes, of course
• Queerness in the Wizard of Oz books, just for you

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Carolina and Robin are back in your ears for a bonus episode to mark the best real-life sleepover that is the Papal Conclave.

Politics include: faith and politics being quite icky together, how the West Wing really did dictate political art through the 2010s, and how electing a Pope is actually not that dissimilar to electing your Constituency Labour Party Secretary. Genuinely.

Conclave nerds, rejoice:

• A Conclave expert runs you through the election process (The Spectator)
• The best print review of Conclave out there (Michael Wood for the LRB)
• The OG Patrick Harris covers the politics of Pope Francis' funeral (The Observer)

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Carolina and Robin take you through one of the worst calamities in history and the people behind it in domestic-drama-turned-holocaust-film The Zone of Interest (2023).

Politics include: literal Nazis, how there was no God in the house of the Commandant, and how Robin will (maybe) quietly compare your LinkedIn posts to a Rudolf Hoss memo to the SS.

As the 80th Anniversary of VE Day approaches, we encourage you to consider donating to organisations supporting those suffering from the atrocities of war. 

Our further recommendations:

• 'If this is a man' by Primo Levi (1947)
• 'Maus' by Art Spiegelman (1980-1991)
• 'Night' by Elie Wiesel (1960)
• 'Shoah' by Claude Lanzman (1985)
• 'Night and Fog' by Alain Resnais (1956)

And many many more...

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Robin and Carolina discuss the best samurai film of all time, Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954). The bandits are mean, our heroes are heroic, and the farmers are just trying to survive.

Politics include: how Jaws and Star Wars blatantly copied this film, the making of a seven-person army, and a village trying to stay safe in an uncertain world that is basically, literally all of us at the moment.

Hungry for more? Good stuff on Seven Samurai

• The Cine-Files talk about the film for 4+ hours
• Why Kurosawa's films are the best edited in film history
• Foreign Policy magazine dig into the film in connection to war

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Carolina and Robin discuss two of Wallace & Gromit's fabulous films: The Wrong Trousers (1993) and Vengeance Most Fowl (2024), two films that confirm that dogs really are better than human beings.

Politics include: a murderous penguin that uses technology for evil, a robot that is terrifyingly pliant until it's not, the turbulent Yorkshire-Lancashire border, and the literal fundamentals of AI ethics.

See here the complete Sight & Sound critics' list of the 100 best films of all time. Yes, Jeanne Dielman is at the top. Somehow.

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Carolina and Robin discuss The Shining, the terrifying (but always beautiful) tale of a family falling apart in a remote Colorado hotel in the 1970s.

Politics include: the hotel owner who looks like a young Trump, the grim reality of the film being about domestic abuse more than it is about ghosts, and how Jack Torrance represents the broken dreams of the white American working class. 

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Carolina and Robin discuss Cleo from 5 to 7, an outrageously French film about a young woman who may or may not be terminally ill in 1950s Paris. While she waits for her diagnosis, she discovers who she is and her place in the world, politics and all.

Politics include: the beret-wearing, tarot-reading difficulties of being a beautiful woman in Paris, how the war lingers in even the most gentle of French New Wave films, and how everything connects to the modern French far right.

If you like what you hear, please rate and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening, it will help others find the pod.

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