Law of Baseness

Taking the viewer on a tour through several African nations and using the full range of agit-prop aesthetics in its imagery, didactic voice-over and melodramatic soundtrack, Law of Baseness offers a scathing anti-colonialist and anti-capitalist indictment of the Western world.

In contrast to the more impressionist Freedom for Ghana (1957), Law of Baseness is pure agit-prop in its imagery, didactic voice-over and melodramatic soundtrack.

Taking the viewer on a tour through several African nations, and focusing on the murder of Congolese politician and independence leader Patrice Lumumba, it offers a scathing anti-colonialist and anti-capitalist indictment of the Western world. While looking at various forms of exploitation, it finds the source of evil in capitalist greed, using the recurring image of a US dollar coin in the place of a heart. And while an expected product of Cold War rhetoric, it appears prophetic in calling to attention the continuous hunt for resources under neo-colonial conditions.

According to Law of Baseness, the only effective antidote is worker solidarity, and by showing the help and training afforded by the Soviets, it ends on an image of intercontinental friendship and mutual respect between Asia and Africa in the struggles against the state of things.

– Stefan Borsos