”Utopin blir bara bättre ju längre vi väntar på den”

Abstract

”Utopia gets even better while we wait for it”. Alexander Kluge and News from Ideological Antiquity. This essay examines the film News from Ideological Antiquity (2008) by German filmmaker Alexander Kluge. Kluge has tried to fulfil the dream of Soviet filmmaker Ser- gei Eisenstein and make a film version of The Capital by Karl Marx. Kluge’s endeavour is discussed within the context of European left wing cinema, and the film analysis is intertwined with a mapping of the reception of the work in Europe and the US. News from Ideological Antiquity is interpreted as an experiment with new media, aesthetically as well as when it comes to production and distribution. The ambiguous position of the film as political statement is highlighted. One conclusion is that the open structure of the film offers a space for conclusions and thoughts by the spectator, in alignment with the dialectics of The Capital.