Mr. Jones by Andrea Chalupa - 9.5 out of 10

Mr. Jones by Andrea Chalupa

9.5 out of 10

This is a magnificent motion picture, that may be perfect for The Time of Covid 19 that we all try to survive through, trapped in self-quarantine, for though the biographical drama is often as bleak and terrifying as can be, the ultimate message is one of resilience, courage, determination, which could help populations that have to stay at home, when they compare their ‘ordeal’ to that of the millions of those who died of hunger, forced to resort to eating bark tree whenever they could, whose atrocious torture would be exposed by the hero of the narrative, Welsh journalist Gareth Jones aka impressive James Norton, the first to tell the West the truth about the Soviet famine and expose what that system really brings about…hence, this should be on the must see list for Bernie, AOC and their socialist supporters…come to think of it, Trump fans must watch this too, because the idiot is a fun of dictatorships and Putin, a worthy descendant of Stalin.

The opening scenes are poignant and present clearly some of the abilities of the hero, as he presents to some British illuminati – this is meant as a sardonic epithet – some of his eerily prophetic conclusions, made after interviewing Hitler, telling the audience that the lunatic would pose an existential threat to England, foreseeing that an alliance with Stalin would be necessary and having to hear the older gentlemen laugh at his predictions and state that ‘Hitler will soon find out the difference between organizing a rally and running a state’…they are joyful and find the predictions ludicrous, even as the main character is called to answer a phone call from Moscow, where we see that he speaks Russian.

He would be nonetheless dismissed by Lloyd George from his payroll, in spite of the fact that the young man accurately retorts that it is his advice that the politician needs –and events would clearly underline that – but he has to be ‘satisfied’ with a letter of recommendation that the clever hero would later use to get access to higher circles, forging the detail that he used to be an adviser and claiming he is the envoy of the famous, though obviously flawed statesman…he asks to be sent as an official to the Soviet union, but he would be forced to travel on his own and meet with suspicion trying to get into the country where he is asked about the purpose of the visit, the woman jokes when she hears he is a ‘stringer’ a free-lance journalist and hence he does not work for a publication – she says ‘you are trying to be a journalist’ and when he says that he wants to interview Stalin the official concludes…’you are funny Mr. Jones’.

Eventually, he gets limited passage into Moscow, but he would meet all manner of obstacles – for those of us who have had the fortune to live in communist heaven, it is all so familiar and quite painful, because we still pay the price, the fact that we are so much behind the developed West, in terms of infrastructure,  hospitals-  now that they are so desperately needed or they will soon be, when the number of the very sick will rise – but not in political terms, for we have voted for a wise, manly, calm, modest, reasonable president and the American members of the stupid Trump cult might just propel him into the highest office yet again…

Gareth Jones is told to stay only at this hotel and for a couple of days and he is soon informed that there are no rooms left and thus, he has to exit and given it is only this address for him, he would have to travel back home…there are some developments which change the course of events, one being the mentioned use of the Lloyd George letter, with a significant change in it, and the communication with another brilliant, valiant journalist who tells the hero over the phone about ‘Stalin’s gold’, only to be shot dead by the agents of the regime, though the official version would be that a robbery took place…the Welsh personage had always had an issue with the massive investment made by the Soviets, finding it impossible to figure out the source of all that money and asking around about it…

When he meets with the apparatchik that is interested in the man sent by Lloyd George, the journalist gets the usual propaganda, which he would be served on the train as well, that includes talk about the glorious communist party and the wonderful achievements – they kept boasting that they had had no factory for automobiles and now they have and the same for tanks and tractors factories – and in order to see for himself, the Welshman is sent to the Ukraine to admire such a factory, accompanied by a special comrade, who has the same bulshit lines ‘it is so great that we live in paradise now and other such crap’

Intrepid Mr. Jones pretends he is going to the bathroom, only to jump from this train, leave behind the agent and take another one, where he has the first shock, when he peels an orange and sees that those around are hypnotized and when he tries to offer money for the coat of the man next to him, so that he would inconspicuous in his endeavors, his neighbor refuses money and asks for bread…henceforth, images of suffering will be pervasive, long queues of people waiting near food which is shipped on to Moscow, millions had perished he finds out, but he also has to run from the secret police which is trying to get him and they make all the efforts to suppress the truth, helped in this enterprise of selling lies to the West by a Pulitzer Prize Winner, Walter Duranty aka outstanding Peter Sarsgaard, an American that had sold out to the Soviets – that seem to have also had some blackmailing material on the one interested in peccadillos and acts that were illegal at that time – and promoted an image of a lovely new society that is led by great men, especially sweet comrade Stalin, such a dear figure…

As has always been the way of the communists, they try to blackmail Gareth Jones as well, after they catch him and send him to prison, they use six British engineers as a possible subject for a trade – if Mr. jones speaks about things that the soviets do not like, upon his return to Britain, those men would not survive and thus he is asked about the famine…was there one, and he has to answer that there was none, only to have to mediate on the truth as he would have returned, meeting with famous, magnificent George Orwell – who would base Animal Farm on the reporting of the hero and we see him writing the famous Magnum opus that depicts so accurately, although it is a fictional novel, the reality of the communist state and he reads passages with the pigs, the farm where ‘all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’.

George Orwell talks with Gareth Jones about the need to tell the truth no matter what happens and indeed, the idea that he has to keep quite in order to save the lives of the imprisoned British engineers is contradicted by the notion that exposing the truth about the Famine that had already killed millions in the Brave New Soviet union might save other millions of people, if only the West, the Free world does something about it – which they would not for the most part, since due to the diligence of the bastardly liar Duranty – whose Pulitzer has never been revoked, inexplicably and atrociously – the relations between the Soviet union and the US have been normalized and somewhat celebrated…which transports the public to the present, when Putin steals American elections and the result of the fraud, the bombastic idiot is thankful and friendly, taking the word of the tyrant over what the agencies of his country had established…Helsinki 1919