Last Legs, Abrogated

"The various kinds of sovereignty do not necessarily covary."-- Stephen D. Krasner

Frankenheimer's direction in The Horsemen is not necessarily New Wave, but it could not have been what it is without David Lean coming beforehand, and now stands as a favorite of spastic's hothead youth, previously unknown but for nostalgia television. The cinematography is rich, splendid, in colors of beauty and brutality, its thematic aims not so clearly deciphered, not quite about man's destructive capacity with his livestock either. Who knew camels would kill each other at the behest of their trainers? 

Frankenheimer seems to focus solely on man and beast in contention, without tipping the scales one way or the other. It is left for viewers to wonder why Omar's Uraz chooses to cripple himself instead of mending properly after breaking his leg, but it is similar to the way I may choose to bring this to an end and dump myself on the street. Obstinate individuals need the contest, and yet Uraz makes it extreme. After he has a concealed amputation and a victory ride on Jahil, the game trained warrior horse of his father, he rejects his village and goes off with a Taliban-like mountain herder who trains his goat to be a lethal killer at the bong of a drum roll. It is a weird quiet film that admires the defiance of natural anarchy as a way of life, something quietly eroded in progressive sensibility, and yet beneath the surface, the wealth of the developed world is under tremendous strain, analogous to the ephemeral doll like perfection of Leigh Taylor Young in Soylent Green. Given the actual state of civilization depicted on location, it is the actress as a trophy fuck who seems unreal, almost as if doctored for a commercial. Her upkeep must have cost a fortune, and her fate, left to its inferences as Charlton is carried away, wounded, mortally or not, protesting the horror of manufactured cannibalism. I'm not the first person to point out that liberalism unwilling to recognize limits invites catastrophe.

The conception of sovereignty is nonsensical, but some states are more sorereign than others. After 9/11, once I had all the facts, I actually would not have occupied Kabul. We should have wiped out Saudi Arabia, and the subsequent genealogy of events would have been different. Afghanistan, as a state, doesn't seem to function, and as with anything else, nation builders need to get out of the way.