After examining Robert Kramer’s Ice (1970) fictionalize America in our last episode, we shift to West Germany to explore another cinematic portrayal of resistance to fascism in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Third Generation (1979). Set against West Germany’s postwar society, Fassbinder sharply exposes how insincere revolutionary acts can become hollow gestures, exploited to justify expanded state control and surveillance.

Though rooted in 1979, the film eerily anticipates our contemporary world: a society numbed by constant surveillance, manipulated by capitalist tech moguls profiting from manufactured crises, and how citizens are caught in a struggle against the technocratic elites. Additionally, Fassbinder’s overwhelming audio landscape mimics the relentless noise of the modern internet, capturing the exhaustion and confusion of today’s digital age.

Drawing connections to our episodes that covered Uptight (1968), Children of Men (2006), and How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022), we ask: what does resistance look like when liberal democracy itself seems to pave the road to authoritarianism? Fassbinder’s vision resonates with our current dark historical moment, where our capacity to imagine alternatives is shrinking, and the internet serves as both a battlefield and a drain on the soul. 

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