Mr. Jones (2019)
Directed by Agnieszka Holland
In 1933, Welsh journalist Gareth Jones travels to Ukraine, where he experiences the horrors of a famine. Everywhere he goes he meets henchmen of the Soviet secret service who are determined to prevent news about the catastrophe from getting out. Stalin’s forced collectivisation of agriculture has resulted in misery and ruin—the policy is tantamount to mass murder.
5 connections found
View:
5 films that influenced Mr. Jones
What critics say influenced Mr. Jones
The story of Welsh journalist Gareth Jones, in particular, and his discovery of the Holodomor, a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine, is an incredibly important one, with his discovery even inspiring George Orwell's novella "Animal Farm".
JONES portrays author George Orwell (Joseph Mawle) creating his classic “Animal Farm”.
Acting as a framing device to the above, are scenes of George Orwell writing his seminal Animal Farm, an allegorical work which depicts the rise and cruelty of Stalin as a tale of animals taking control of their farm and gradually succumbing to greed and evil.
At the center of Holland’s film, is a powerful, largely dialogue-free segment reminiscent of Roman Polanski ’s The Pianist, in which the starving young journalist wades through snow drifts, avoiding murderous troops and discovering starving or dead families inside their homes.
Holland is perspicacious enough to know that licentious degeneracy is not the liberating enemy of totalitarianism, but the ennui of it, its natural epiphenomenon—likewise depicted in A Clockwork Orange (1971) and J.G. Ballard’s novels High-Rise (1975) and Cocaine Nights (1996).
You’d be right to detect a hint of Steven Spielberg in Mr Jones’ masterful treatment of history, in which normal men elevated by honest-to-goodness moral clarity perform heroic acts, as in Schindler’s List (1993), Bridge of Spies (2015) and The Post (2017).
Advertisement
You’d be right to detect a hint of Steven Spielberg in Mr Jones’ masterful treatment of history, in which normal men elevated by honest-to-goodness moral clarity perform heroic acts, as in Schindler’s List (1993), Bridge of Spies (2015) and The Post (2017).