God to Give It Up: An Essay On "Hard to Be ... - Buttered Popcorn

: The protagonist, Anton (disguised as the nobleman Don Rumata), must maintain a policy of non-intervention, even as he watches the brutal persecution of intellectuals by an anti-intellectual regime known as "the Greys". 2. The Aesthetic of Filth and "Slow Cinema"

: Set 800 years in the future, Earth scientists travel to the planet Arkanar to observe a society stuck in a perpetual Middle Ages .

It serves as a cautionary tale about how easily civilization can backslide into a "new Dark Ages" when intellectualism is suppressed .

The film ends not with a victory, but with the realization that when "the Greys" are defeated, even more repressive religious "Blacks" take their place.