The Trotsky

There is an unbearable lightness about the post-Hughesian teen movie, wherein all actions are of little consequence, all embarrassment is ephemeral, and all angst finds an outlet in play. Never mind the movies, this is the preponderant message of high school in general; that this too shall pass, as the sheer pointlessness of a whole phase of one's life is explained away with veiled threats of a “real world,” waiting in the wings to surprise the insolent and unsuspecting. High school, at least at the narrow end of the funnel, is very much directed at the creation of an all-penetrating sense of impotency in the student, while educating said subject by a series of creative not-quite anachronisms, which feel like reality, but are statedly unreal.

On a purely conceptual level, The Trotsky would seem to address itself to these familiar conditions. The film, after all, centers on a teenage revolutionary who, believing that he is the reincarnation of a certain Bolshevik revolutionary, attempts to unionize his high school. Thankfully, the deceptively straight-forward comedy takes itself just seriously enough to do justice to its premise; that is, justice. More than a clever riff on the theme of influence or a tribute to teenage precocity, the film is bold enough to take its own conceit at face value, and pauses for nary a second to rebuke its (delusional?) hero's claim to greatness, even endorsing a deeply “inappropriate” cross-generational relationship which, again, does nothing whatsoever to dispel the protagonist's sense of Vanguardist vocation. It is frankly exhilarating that a film boasting all the hallmarks of the “teen” genre, to the number of a loving tribute, would advance the usual, liberal theme of “finding oneself” in so deeply ironic a fashion. After all, its highly individual protagonist finds himself only through the wholesale adoption of another identity, one deeply incongruous with his surroundings, and solidarity with his peers.

The Trotsky uses the unlikely vehicle of its genre (at which, point for point, it excels) to deliver a deeply unfashionable and moving message, and in its very premise speaks symbolically to a powerful truism; that, amid oppressive circumstances, to behave literally can be deeply ironic. As a symbol of eternal recurrence, Trotsky's young avatar is imbued with a sense of living history, one which the high school as a liberal institution disavows, and consequently recognizes in himself an agency which it cannot accommodate, and actively discourages. His character would seem to be addressed to the condition that, in most suburban high schools, delusion and rebellion are virtually synonymous terms, and therein lies the movie's brilliance.

However, as is the case with all good propaganda, you won't have to think too hard in order to enjoy The Trotsky's prevailing mood of righteous indignation and rebelliousness; but if you do, you'll be rewarded. It's one of the very few teen movies of recent years that aren't hypocritical in this sense.