Patterns (1956)
7/10
Sleeper corporate quasi-morality play - dry, dull and theatrical at first, later dramatic and cerebral- well-written, well-acted and well-shot.
25 February 2023
For a very quiet night in, I recommend Patterns - a corporate newcomer joins a conglomerate and is wowed by the welcome he receives; but there is a darker reason to be concerned when the undercurrents in the staff simmer and boil over. This is a tense triangular tale - like a fairy tale for modern times: the King has 2 princes - but one must replace the other. Who will replace who - and who might take the throne? This is quite a cerebral take on the conflicts in capitalism - the answers do not turn out to be as obvious as one might have thought - and the final configuration of power that is created is a sophisticated and ironic one. The moral of the story is left quite ambiguous - people want to improve the world and have differing ways of going about it - but their revolving places in power are determined by a mechanism of power-taking where one can end up becoming the thing you were ostensibly fighting - in a manner that one has little control in; in fact, the actual agent and engine of this pattern is, if not impersonal, then entirely unconscious with evolution at the wheel. What could change it? Waxing philosophical is one of the very positive effects of this very deep contemplation of corporate politics. A solid piece of work worth a watch.
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