"The Terminal" meets "Stroszek"
In the early 80s there were many pro-American/anti-Soviet movies like "Moscow on the Hudson". President Ronald Reagan reheated the Cold War in his 1982 "Evil Empire" speech and suddenly free capitalism and collective communism waged war once again on cinema screens.Unsurprisingly, "Hudson" begins in Russia, director Paul Mazursky treating us to a twenty minute sequence which stresses that the great socialist paradise is really a nightmarish hellhole. Cold and harsh, Russians wait hours in line for toilet paper, are constantly under surveillance and always fearful. Robin Williams, who plays a member of a Russian travelling circus on tour in the US, thus decides to defect, literally seduced by the capitalist decadence of a Bloomingdale's department store.
From here on virtually every character in the film is an ethnic minority or immigrant, Mazursky stressing that in America everyone is from somewhere else. Heck, even the immigration officers are immigrants, every creed and race given the chance to make something of themselves.
Mazursky then rolls out the cultural icons. Blue jeans, coffee mugs, soft toilet paper, department stores, yellow cabs, hot dog stands, baseball games, limousines etc are celebrated and dished out like ideological weapons, symbols of cultural superiority. Robin Williams himself finds it easy to make friends and overcome obstacles in this fantasy word. Black men, Italians, Greeks and Latinos cheerfully assist him along the way and he has no trouble jumping from one job to the next. The film pauses at times to say that crime, racism and greed are rampant in America, and takes aim at the cavalier attitude most American's have towards their freedom, but for the most part, the way Williams smoothly assimilates into American life is a bit too unbelievable. There are no struggles, no racial tensions, everything is a bit too easy.
And yet, I think Mazursky does try to insert a bittersweet, almost subversive tone to the film. Williams remains an anonymous bum at the end of the film, a mere street musician, and his closest friend, an African American, loses his job and kids. America may be the land of opportunity, but only for those it doesn't crush.
7.9/10 – Quirky, despite its black and white politics. Worth one viewing.
score /10
tieman64 21 April 2010
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2239156/35213
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