>There's no frame story to support this.

There definitely is. No one on screen looks into camera and says this directly, but the whole recurring "Would you like to know more?" bit is supposed to tip the viewer off that what they're watching is a product of the government's propaganda efforts.

I truly don't know how you can watch this [1] and conclude we're meant to fully trust them as the 100% honest truth.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cktmS-yaxM

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mrob an hour ago | parent [-]

The "would you like to know more" segments are inner nested stories. Those actually are presented as in-universe video, and qualify as epistolary narrative. But to claim that the movie as a whole is anti-fascist satire relies on the assertion that the whole movie is epistolary, which goes against the narrative conventions of film-making. Judging only by what we see on screen, we have to take it at face value. To do allow otherwise permits bizarre interpretations of any fiction you like, because you can always claim it's unreliable narration.

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slg 44 minutes ago | parent [-]

Why do you think those segments were included in the movie if it wasn't to get us to question the reliability of the narrative they're presenting?

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mrob 43 minutes ago | parent [-]

To differentiate between the potentially unreliable in-universe material and the conventional narrative of the rest. There's no on-screen evidence to justify a second level of nesting.

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slg 33 minutes ago | parent [-]

That confuses me because you seemingly aren't disagreeing with anything in the "unreliable in-universe material". The primary difference I see between those segments and the rest of the movie is simply tone.

	▲	mrob 25 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The tone marks the difference between epistolary narration (which by convention may be unreliable) and omniscient narration (which by convention is always reliable). I'm well aware what Paul Verhoeven intended, but he failed at conveying that intention on the screen. What we actually see is a society that's more ethical than any real world society in times of war. If Verhoeven didn't want us to believe that then he shouldn't have used the omniscient narration of a conventional action movie. Any movie that relies on external sources to convey its message has failed as a movie.