Luna Park

I have a soft-spot for Jewish Nazis and self-loathing Jews so when I found out about the Russian film Luna Park, I immediately had to see it. The Russki film follows a Neo-Nazi skinhead named Andrei who finds out that he is the bastard son of a moderately successful Jewish musician. Andrei’s father is everything he hates, a Judaic that is more successful than the majority of ethnic Russians and admittedly disdains anything involving real working-class work. On discovering that he is a mischling in the first degree, Andrei is even more enraged than he is whilst beating swarthy mongrels. After all, Andrei’s whole being and reason for living is destroyed upon learning he is one of Abraham’s bastards sons as his life centers around his anti-Jewish skinhead crew that inhabits the industrial bowels of an amusement park. Luna Park is surely one of those wonderful and rare films that is able to eloquently express the absurdity of being a human as well as the schizoid joy of having a self/hate relationship with oneself. 

Currently, Russia contains the most Neo-Nazis in the world (oh, how time changes everything with biting irony), from feeble minded meathead skinhead thugs to somewhat legitimate mainstream Nationalist politicians. Russia used to also have the largest Jewish population in the world (mainly contained in The Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia). After the “Russian” revolution of 1917 (a largely Jewish supported and executed affair), Jews were able to spread throughout the world like wandering locusts. Mass Murdering mongrel revolutionary Vladimir Lenin (1/4 Jewish himself) even made a speech in 1919 on the capitalist ills of anti-Jewish pogroms which was surely one of the first somewhat famous Pro-Jewish propaganda campaigns, something that has become all too common in the post-Eurocentric and globalized United States of America. Andrei of Luna Park is surely an unfortunate assimilated remnant of the once thriving and still hated Russian Jewry. Unlike Daniel Balint from Henry Bean’s The Believer, there is nothing Jewish about Andrei’s behavior nor pantomimes (not to mention, he is a body builder), for he truly is a robust Russian brute flowing with a radiant energy of testosterone. It is fairly obvious that Andrei would never make it in the world of Jewish vaudevillian comedy but as for his Father, that is a whole other story….

Although a lover of Russian cinema from all eras, I find it nearly impossible to relate to the ‘Russian mentality,’ even at the most fundamental level. With the barbaric Russians featured in Luna Park, this also holds true for me for they seemed to be psychologically wired in a way that Northern Europeans probably could relate to in the Middle Ages. Andrei’s Jewish father, on the other hand, is instantly identifiable as Jewish, for he certainly shares the cynicism, humor, and arrogance of God’s chosen tribe. I bet that the average American would also find Andrei’s Jewish father to be the most 'American' and understandable due to the bombardment of krappy-kosher-komedies that Hollywood has reamed them with since birth. Although clever and humorous, Andrei’s Father is a highly despicable man, a swindling bohemian musician of the most culturally repulsive degree (he brought degenerate Jazz to Russia for god's sake), certainly someone sharing a similar genotype with Adam Sandler and Sacha Baron Cohen. Despite these glaring anti-goy traits, Andrei soon starts respecting his Father and his talents. It doesn’t take Andrei long to realize he needs to shed his working-class skinhead lifestyle for the wealthy (at least rich for a Soviet) hedonistic living of a Judaic entertainer. It soon becomes apparent that the skinheads and virtual prostitutes of Luna Park hate Jews largely out of resentment, not for the love of Mother Russia. 

Andrei’s Jewish ancestry is revealed to him by his whorish lover, an older full-figured woman who also happened to be his deceased Mother’s best friend. This older woman hates Andrei’s Father for very personal reasons and wants nothing more than having the old Jewish bohemian die a miserable death with the musical compositions of Richard Wagner as the soundtrack. After all, Andrei’s Jewish Father is a man known for screwing every young blond Russki in town (Andrei’s girlfriend and Mother being two of them) so a lot of women in the area love and hate this Hebrew geezer. The real intensity and drama in Luna Park lies in a total personal war between Andrei’s Father and all of the Russian Neo-Nazis, Andrei being the strongest deciding factor in who takes home final victory. Somehow, I found myself actually cheering for the Jewish con-man and his blue collar bastard son. After all, the skinheads (like in most films of this type and in real-life) in Luna Park come off as being a group of morons that flaunt petty idealism as a rationalization for their uncontrollable and improperly channeled hatred. If the skinheads really wanted to defeat the Jew, they would outdo him with cultural achievements and authentic/organic Russian art, not by proving that they are the untermensch barbarians that the real German National Socialists portrayed them as. These skinheads embody the slave-morality as described by Friedrich Nietzsche, for they cannot make a good reputation of themselves by achievement but instead blame the Judaics (the original promoters of the slave-morality) for their lack of success in their own country. 

Luna Park starts excitingly with a savage brawl between skinheads and a group of bikers (ironically, sporting German helmets while fighting with the Neo-Nazis). The opening gang warfare scene also happens to be the most brutal segment in the film for Luna Park is no Romper Stomper. If you’re looking for excessive philistine violence or a film that will pump you up for a fight, Luna Park surely fails in that regard. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a film with somewhat subtle melodrama and multi-layered emotions, Luna Park is a film worth embracing. Despite being a film featuring a Neo-Nazi Anti-Hero, Luna Park is a fairly apolitical work that legitimately looks at the irrationality that is human nature. It is not often that I see a drama like this, where I don’t find myself questioning whether or not the director has any understanding of humanity (not to mention, human emotions) as is the cause with most Hollywood films. 

-Ty E