The Rebellion of Red Maria

Just in time for the upcoming convergence of catastrophes and eventual capitulation of Europa – especially the severely stagnating and decaying Mediterranean, otherwise known as old Europe – decidedly decadent and deliriously debauched Greek auteur Costas Zapas (Uncut Family, The Last Porn Movie) – one of the last truly uncompromising auteur filmmakers in the world – released his politically-charged and quasi-pornographic work I antarsia tis kokkinis Marias (2010) aka The Rebellion of Red Maria in apocalyptic anti-tribute to the death of revolutionary leftism in the Occident. Putridly ‘punk rock’ and passively pornographic in persuasion, The Rebellion of Red Maria was released only two years following the economic crisis in Greece and clearly wallows in such an uncertain world on the verge of absolute chaos as the height of ‘freedom’ and personal liberty, where one can rape and murder without consequence. Centering around a strikingly degenerate fellow who calls himself “Red Maria” – a middle-aged ex-commie terrorist turned tranny prostitute – who takes on a young protégé he finds beaten to a pulp in the street and revives by molesting his genitals and subsequently trains to become a nihilistic serial killer, The Rebellion of Red Maria is the disillusioned expression of a filmmaker who has lost faith in leftwing politics and the revolution itself and has thus developed a more extreme and erratic Weltanschauung where personal gratification, at any cost, is the foremost ideology. Indeed, a withered and uniquely ugly ‘queen’ of the seedy semen-drenched streets, Red Maria looks like he became the cracker plaything of a gang of Negroes in prison as a result of his terrorist activities, thus he has accepted his newfound ‘femininity’ after losing the revolution and his anal virginity, and he is a literal whore of capitalism who peddles his man-cunt for mere shekels. It is only when he finds a young man, the victim of so-called ‘neo-fascist’ brutality, that he finds his calling for a carnal campaign of cock-sucking and coldblooded killing and decides to get back in tune with his loony leftist roots, albeit with a more patently pessimistic and pernicious game plan. Featuring random references to Greek diva opera singer Maria Callas – a ‘spiritual mother’ of sorts for Red Maria – and with a discordant death metal soundtrack, The Rebellion of Red Maria, aside from being a work of abberosexual ‘anti-pornography,’ is also an ‘anti-musical’ of sorts that incriminatingly celebrates moral, cultural, aesthetic, spiritual, and political degeneracy in a manner like never before, as if seemingly deranged director Costas Zapas had been released from an LGBT neo-Trotskyite mental institution before directing the film, thus also making it one of the most truly genuine leftwing revolutionary, and consequently philosophically and artistically despicable, works ever made.

“The Revolution died…It always died,” or so says Marxist terrorist turned (foul)flesh-peddling tranny Red Maria – a merry maniac of a mensch who long ago lost faith in everything, especially ‘revolutionary change,’ aside from sucking cock and boning twinks. One fine cloudy day, Red Maria finds an unconscious young man who is wearing nothing but baggy shorts, which allow his pecker to hangout freely. Being a good Samaritan, Red Maria revives the gentleman by molesting him via humble handjob, which ultimately awakes the jaded gentleboy from his slumber, thus ushering in the ill-begotten romantic relationship in what is very possibly the most completely and utterly repulsive gay odd couple to ungracefully grace the silverscreen. As Red Maria learns and will never forget, his new butt ugly boy toy was beaten to a bloody pulp by a street gang of nefarious neo-fascists who do not take kindly to wiggers whose wieners pop out of their shorts randomly. A virtual modern primitive of a post-industrial wasteland, Maria’s homo homeboy grunts like a hip hop toddler with Down syndrome, thus it is up to the sardonic shemale to ‘make a man’ out of his perturbed protégé. The first thing Maria asks if he can sucks the lad’s cock, which inspires the young man to finger his buttocks and masturbate. Not one to do things halfway, or to literally or figuratively masturbate with his life, Red Maria teaches his sodomite student how to get buggered in the brown eye, the gospel of apocalyptic post-Marxist revolutionary politics 101, and how to slowly and brutally butcher and murder neo-fascists in the comfort of one's own bathroom. Ironically, Red Maria is a rare Greek man whose ancestors may have not been raped by Turks as s/he has blond hair and blue eyes yet the neo-fascist street warriors are superlatively swarthy as if they just landed on Greece on a raft from Iran. With no chance of a real Marxist revolution happening and with leftwingers now having ‘rightwing souls,’ Red Maria redefines ‘permanent revolution’ via hedonistic homicide and haphazard homo sex. Red Maria also manages to transform his poof protégé from being a mere savage sod who compulsively strokes his meat on the commode into a political radical in red pleather who rather enjoys being reamed in the rectum by an old Bolshevik of buggery.  If there ever was a celluloid romance that was radically rancid and repellant to both the eyes and ears, as well as the soul, The Rebellion of Red Maria makes for an inordinately odious and rotten romance gone retarded with a hysterical heart and soul that only a half Negro/half Hebrew hermaphrodite from Athens could appreciate.

Indubitably, if I learned anything by watching The Rebellion of Red Maria, it is that not all love is beautiful and that leftwing politics are quite effective in emasculating men. Undoubtedly, if German New Cinema dandy auteur Werner Schroeter was a punk rock pornographer who trashed the voice of Maria Callas for mundane metal and intricate tableaux for minimalistic ‘realism’ of the radically raunchy sort, it might resemble The Rebellion of Red Maria – a trying tragicomedy that is about as aesthetically appealing as a brown baby in a blender. With the incessant repeating of the same offscreen poetry lines, quite like Argila (1969) and Eika Katappa (1969), as will as its anti-authoritarian sociopolitical subtext, The Rebellion of Red Maria is indubitably a work inspired by the films of Werner Schroeter, so it is quite interesting to note that Mediterranean auteur Costas Zapas ripped off a kraut auteur who ripped off Mediterranean filmmakers, sort of like George Lucas borrowed the cinematic conventions for his Star War films from a Jap named Akira Kurosawa who borrowed his samurai film from John “Western” Ford. Of course, where Schroeter only saw death and dystopia in his sad cinematic swansong This Night (2008) aka Nuit de chien, zany Zapas only sees lurid love and carnal celebration in The Rebellion of Red Maria – a fiercely farcical depiction of a forsaken future without a historical future where man, be he a tormented tranny or sadistic skinhead, sees his fellow man as meat to be fucked and killed and where biological women have no place.  Undoubtedly, in director Costas Zapas' mind, the world is a prison planet ruled by a pernicious plutocracy, thus The Rebellion of Red Maria makes for a wanton whimper in the face of globalization, technocratic terror, international bankers, and homogenization by way of Americanization and Hollywoodization, albeit a vaguely witty one.  While I can respect some of Zapas' aesthetic antagonism and blatant anti-Hollywoodism, I found The Rebellion of Red Maria about as philosophically and aesthetically inspiring as the latest Robert Rodriguez film, but at least the Greek auteur realizes the revolution, as well as the cheap Che Guevara 'romance' that oftentimes inspires would-be-revolutionaries to waste their lives for the good of the cause, is about as realistic as a black ruled planet, which is certainly something one cannot say of any other leftist filmmaker.

-Ty E