The War of the Worlds: Next Century (1981)
A deeply bizarre political science fiction (of sorts) with a style similar to Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. In future Poland, martians visits the Earth and they want blood. Like literally. The oppressive police state government is lining citizens up to give blood to the martians “willingly”. In the midst of all this we follow Iron Idem, who is a popular news presenter, and how he is clearly just a puppet for those in power - despite being the front person for a an “independent” news show. All of this ties into the political climate of Poland in the early 1980s and the movie was also banned at release. I don’t think I have proper historical knowledge to fully engage with this, but the nods to both Wells and Orwell are easy to appreciate. Television screens are present in almost every scene making for an obvious theme of how TV shapes reality, how fake news are made and makes you question whether the martians are even real. There are definitely many hints that everything is all just made up.
Rating: 3