Cinematic Rock and Hard Place:
One of my favorite questions to ask fellow cine-heads is “What movie did you dislike that everyone else loved and how did you deal with it?” Thankfully, I don’t find myslef in this position very often, because when I do, it ties me in knots, like trying to explain fireworks to a blind man.
So it must have been my time last night when I went to a late show of The Constant Gardener at the 4-Star, propelled by a rave review from Dave, and then walked out in the middle.
Maybe I’m too literal but in a film billed as a thriller, I expect, well, thrills. Not the roller coaster kind but tension, something that welds me to my seat out of both fear and searing curiosity. The Constant Gardener has none. It’s a story about a man whose wife is murdered while she’s working to expose the immoral collusion of local government in Africa and western drug companies who use the continent and its citizens as one big testing lab. The man goes looking for who may have done such a horrible thing. Trouble is, we already know. We know the answer will be a corporate conspiracy with doors opened by corrupt governments and greed as the prime mover. We know all this by minute 20 so watching him figure it out isn’t compelling. It’s like hearing a joke repeated seven different ways. And then seven more.
Fernando Meirelles directed this movie along with the equated-with-the-second-coming City of God, which I liked ok and reviewed for Film Critic.com. But this man has a problem I see him not learning form: So far, he’s 2-for-2 in choosing precisely the wrong directorial style for the story he’s telling. City of God is a painful, violent, coming-of-age fable told with the slickness of an MTV Video. Gardener, based on spymaster John Le Carre’ novel, has all the snap of wet rag. Pacing is casual, bordering on languid. The first plot point takes 40 minutes to drop and the investigation doesn’t get moving until minute 90. Between them are two dozen scenes which say, in two dozen ways, that Things Are Not What They Seem.
It doesn’t work. Not at all. I feel like Gardener is supposed to rivet me or at least move me to shake my fist in anger. I was too mystified then bored to do either.
Anybody else see this movie? What did I miss?
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8 Replies to “Cinematic Rock and Hard Place:”
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I really enjoyed the film, but your complaints are valid. If you’re expecting a traditional taut, end-of-your-seat thriller the film will disappoint. I went in expecting a character study masquerading as a thriller, and I wasn’t disappointed.
The visual style of the film could easily be construed as slick visuals for the sake of slick visuals, but I felt it added a really interesting vibrancy to the movie. The thing I found interesting is that the visuals were all rooted in the present, but the film has this aged timelessness. It could have happened last week, or it could have happened twenty or thirty years ago.
It’s stuff like the visuals and the heavy use of computers that pulls you back to the present and reminds you that this is happening *now*.
Films are like people: some we all can agree are immediately loveable, some we detest en masse, and some are of the “I can’t believe he’s with her” nature. I can easily see this film being one of the latter.
I really enjoyed the film, but your complaints are valid. If you’re expecting a traditional taut, end-of-your-seat thriller the film will disappoint. I went in expecting a character study masquerading as a thriller, and I wasn’t disappointed.
The visual style of the film could easily be construed as slick visuals for the sake of slick visuals, but I felt it added a really interesting vibrancy to the movie. The thing I found interesting is that the visuals were all rooted in the present, but the film has this aged timelessness. It could have happened last week, or it could have happened twenty or thirty years ago.
It’s stuff like the visuals and the heavy use of computers that pulls you back to the present and reminds you that this is happening *now*.
Films are like people: some we all can agree are immediately loveable, some we detest en masse, and some are of the “I can’t believe he’s with her” nature. I can easily see this film being one of the latter.
You’d REALLY hate Antoninoni’s “The Passenger” then, which is a complete deviation from the whole psychological thriller formula, turning into something else entirely — as far as I’m concerned, it’s Antonioni’s masterpiece (although I also greatly admire “Il Grido,” “Red Desert” and, begrudgingly, “L’Aventurra”).
Given that youth is constantly exposed to MTV-style filmmaking, Meirelles’ approach makes complete sense to me. First off, from an accessibility standpoint — using visual motifs normally associated with the bling bling of celebrity to spell out a more human story. And also because he is, rather skillfully and emotionally, taking back this cinematic language and putting it in the hands of the people. Because of this, I would argue that “City of God” isn’t just a harrowing film, but a film that sucessfully uses cinematic language to tell a tale outside the accustomed metier.
Sometimes, films aren’t meant to fit into neat genre defintions. I’m curious if you hated “The Tailor of Panama” (another Le Carre adaptation) for the same reasons. It’s about as angry and fascinating as “The Constant Gardener,” but, like TCG, it deals first and foremost with character. Did it disappoint you that the answers weren’t clear-cut (or, as you perceived, explicitly stated, allowing the characters to flourish)? Or because you weren’t willing to peer deeper in the contrast between Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, and the world around them that creates these mentalities?
You’d REALLY hate Antoninoni’s “The Passenger” then, which is a complete deviation from the whole psychological thriller formula, turning into something else entirely — as far as I’m concerned, it’s Antonioni’s masterpiece (although I also greatly admire “Il Grido,” “Red Desert” and, begrudgingly, “L’Aventurra”).
Given that youth is constantly exposed to MTV-style filmmaking, Meirelles’ approach makes complete sense to me. First off, from an accessibility standpoint — using visual motifs normally associated with the bling bling of celebrity to spell out a more human story. And also because he is, rather skillfully and emotionally, taking back this cinematic language and putting it in the hands of the people. Because of this, I would argue that “City of God” isn’t just a harrowing film, but a film that sucessfully uses cinematic language to tell a tale outside the accustomed metier.
Sometimes, films aren’t meant to fit into neat genre defintions. I’m curious if you hated “The Tailor of Panama” (another Le Carre adaptation) for the same reasons. It’s about as angry and fascinating as “The Constant Gardener,” but, like TCG, it deals first and foremost with character. Did it disappoint you that the answers weren’t clear-cut (or, as you perceived, explicitly stated, allowing the characters to flourish)? Or because you weren’t willing to peer deeper in the contrast between Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, and the world around them that creates these mentalities?
you know, if you roll it up right, you can snap a wet rag pretty good.
you know, if you roll it up right, you can snap a wet rag pretty good.
Hmmmm…I wonder if this is one of those situations where expectations can totally ruin something for you. You know how it is…like going into “Broadcast News” expecting broad comedy. I wonder if you’d like it much better if you saw it again. To me, this movie is not at all a thriller, but a drama in the true sense of the word. It doesn’t matter that you know who did it, because it isn’t a whodunit. To me this movie is a relationship film…it’s about the relationship between a man and his wife, and all the more poignant because his understanding of the relationship only grows and develops after she’s dead. The true mystery, and the one that pays off absolutely in the end, is “How much did she love him, and how much did he love her?” That’s the question whose answer unwinds slowly but inexorably over the course of the film, and the answer is heart-wrenching when you see it. I think if someone had said to you, “Think ‘Remains of the Day’ rather than ‘Three Days of the Condor'” you might have loved it. Or not. 🙂
Hmmmm…I wonder if this is one of those situations where expectations can totally ruin something for you. You know how it is…like going into “Broadcast News” expecting broad comedy. I wonder if you’d like it much better if you saw it again. To me, this movie is not at all a thriller, but a drama in the true sense of the word. It doesn’t matter that you know who did it, because it isn’t a whodunit. To me this movie is a relationship film…it’s about the relationship between a man and his wife, and all the more poignant because his understanding of the relationship only grows and develops after she’s dead. The true mystery, and the one that pays off absolutely in the end, is “How much did she love him, and how much did he love her?” That’s the question whose answer unwinds slowly but inexorably over the course of the film, and the answer is heart-wrenching when you see it. I think if someone had said to you, “Think ‘Remains of the Day’ rather than ‘Three Days of the Condor'” you might have loved it. Or not. 🙂