The Great Dictator

When the Little Jewish Barber recieves a bump on the head after saving his comrade in WW1, it seems he lost all sense of time. Now almost twenty years later and the evil dictator Adenoid Hynkel is on the rise and wants the Jewish people to be blamed for his short comings. The Jewish Barber is unaware of this and returns to his barber shop. When he is attacked by storm troopers and fights back, it might seem like the end for him. However the same comrade he saved is now a memeber of Adenoid Hynkel party and saves him. This leads to calamity and confusion, as well as the best final speech of all time.

A hymn to all that is evil within us and good within our very being. This is just as relevant now as it was in that horrific world it was born from. Chaplin has made not only his greatest film but a masterwork of emotional grace. If this wonderful world is anything, it is a complex and confusing place. We, the most intelligent of species try to control and order it to understand itself. Chaplin understood this and the ideology behind it. Hynkel is Hitler and he is every bit the monster portrayed. Chaplin uses that dash of satire to expose Hitlers way of blaming all for his failings. He used bullies to harm innocent and good people. He also destorted the truth to play lies. This is all here and with an eye of the event not as a joy but as a horror. Watching it in real time can hit your very sense of self. That is a profound thing to think that a strike on a person is like a strike on yourself. Chaplin knew also the little boy, besting his friend in Hitler and explores that here with his use of a counter part....Yes Il Duce no less....

Now to the disc itself, I was let down a bit. Chaplin has had many version released and Curzon have made great leaps with these. This work it seems has so much said that it needed nothing else added. Sad as that maybe it could also be the fact that the film tells its story. The film is the king and the rest just pawns. The image is great but a little water logged. Print damage that has sadly lasted for some time and on other copies I have. The sound is a joy and the final speech is captured perfectly. This is the hymn to the world, if anything else. The film deserves to be given a place in those great works that have said and do say, we are one. That and to laugh in adversity is divine and if god was laughing with you...