jürgen fauth’s muckworld

Angelina Jolie plays Mariane Pearl in Michael Winterbottom’s docudrama about the kidnapping and murder of her husband, the journalist Daniel Pearl. After United 93 and several other pointless exercises in dramatizing the “War on Terror,” you might ask: why bother? We all know what happened to Daniel Pearl–what’s the use in rehashing the story? Is the agony of a pregnant widow-to-be really worth sitting through, even if it’s portrayed by an A-list movie star?

Fortunately, Michael Winterbottom, the prolific and versatile talent behind The Road to Guantanomo, 9 Songs, and Tristram Shandy, supplies a convincing answer. As journalists, the Pearls believed that open dialogue would lead to better understanding. Unlike United 93, which was devoid of context and took liberties with known facts, A Mighty Heart, based on Mariane Pearl’s book, constantly refers to events before and after, to people’s motivations, to reasons, arguments, and possible explanations. The film is dedicated to the Pearl’s son Adam, and like the child that never met his father, we have much to gain from a better understanding of the complexities of what happened, and why.

In films like In This World and The Road to Guantanomo, Michael Winterbottom has perfected a semi-documentary style of filmmaking that relies on real locations, small crews, and serendipity to achieve an immediacy that’s rarely seen on the screen. A Mighty Heart was shot in Pakistan, and the presence of Angelina Jolie, in a wig and sans make-up, rarely distracts from the sense that we’re watching real events. From the teeming streets of Karachi, where Daniel (Dan Futterman) is last seen taking a cab to the guarded house where Mariane anxiously awaits his return, the texture of the film is full of impressionistic details that we couldn’t have gathered from the news. For some reason I can’t quite explain, I was especially touched by the way Daniel holds the microphone of his hands-free headset up to his mouth when he speaks to his wife.

The film narrates, from Mariane’s perspective, the days after Daniel’s disappearance on the way to a dicey interview on January 23, 2002 until his death is confirmed nearly a month later. The Pearl house quickly turns into the headquarters for the uneasy alliance of Pakistani and American agencies who are conducting a hectic search, along with journalists and editors from the Wall Street Journal. Emails and documents are searched for clues. A whiteboard fills with a tangled web of contacts, fixers, and mysterious sheiks. Pearl’s Indian colleague Asra (Archie Panjabi) is a accused of being an Indian spy. A chef is brought in to keep pregnant Mariane well-fed. Colin Powell announces that negotiating with terrorists is out of the question for the U.S. government. Suspects are taken into custody and interrogated. Mariane gives an interview on CNN but refuses to cry. A Pakistani toddler plays in the yard, his arms hennaed with curly patterns. The movie’s frantic bustle releases into an explosion of grief when Mariane finds out what we already know.

A Mighty Heart opens next Friday.

A Mighty Heart. Michael Winterbottom, 2007. ****

The trailer:

Gabriel Range’s faux TV documentary about the October 2007 assassination of George Bush and its aftermath is skillfully crafted and utterly pointless. The smoothly assembled film features real archival footage, futzed footage, and actors who stand in as talking heads–Bush’s speechwriter, the retired head of security, the forensics expert, etc. It’s all perfectly convincing, but I am at a loss why anybody thought this film was worth making.

After a first-act buildup in which we see real footage of President Bush giving a speech at a Chicago hotel besieged by protesters, he is gunned down, JFK-style, by a sniper. What happens next isn’t as much conjecture but history slightly tweaked; the murder isn’t a jumping-off point for wild speculation, but serves as metaphor instead. After the President expires, the usual suspects are put into stress positions, Cheney is itching to attack a middle eastern country, and the Patriot Act is extended. Sound familiar?

In the press notes, Range talks about trying to create “an opportunity to arouse discussion about the impact of 9/11 on American life,” but he also wanted the film to “show the pernicious effects of violence” and have it be “relatively balanced and not overly partisan.” Seems to me that 9/11 itself furnished us with every opportunity we ever needed to talk about 9/11, and anybody interested in the pernicious effects of violence just has to turn on CNN. And what’s the point of making a movie with this much potential for commentary, and aim for a “relatively balanced” point of view? Death of a President is wasted opportunity that banks on shock value alone, with nothing to add to the discussion. Opens October 27.

Death of a President. Gabriel Range, 2006. *

[tags]president bush, murder, documentary, mockumentary, 1 star, film, cheney, war on terror, iraq[/tags]

Fuckin’ awful. Misguided, unfunny, overlong. Let’s count the ways in which this movie blew:

1. There aren’t any jokes. Well, maybe one genuine joke every fifteen minutes. The rest of the “hilarity” is supposed to come from a) knowing winks about genre conventions (ie, the “montage” montage ) But just pointing out that you know about conventions doesn’t make it funny yet. b) cursing. Big fucking whoop. c) juxtaposing puppets with violence and sex. None of this is actually funny. I snickered when they blew up the pyramids, and the “AIDS” musical number was slightly humorous, but that was about it.

2. It’s offensive right-wing crap. Yeah, I know Parker/Stone’s bread and butter is “being offensive.” They probably think it’s “extreme satire.” But it’s not satire unless you actually have a point. If I understood this movie correctly (we fastforwarded the second half) then the real villians are actors (F.A.G.s, get it?) and the likes of Michael Moore because they’re pussies and it takes balls to deal with terrorist assholes. Well, isn’t that what the President has been saying all along? So either Parker/Stone are a bunch of neocon dickweeds who are happily making Rove’s propaganda for him (Moore as suicide bomber…?), or they’re just profoundly misguided. Either way, they should stay the hell away from political satire.

I found the way the real-life actors were treated and dispatched especially offensive. It’s admirable, in fact, that Sean Penn went to Iraq–so where’s the joke in having him repeat that? Janine Garofalo is a courageous citizen, actress or not, and to blow the top of her head off for laughs is simply vicious.

If I’d paid any money whatsoever for this movie, I’d be genuinely upset… but I suppose Parker/Stone would count that as a victory because they “pushed my buttons.” Yeah whatever. The sad truth is that if it weren’t for the button-pushing, they wouldn’t know how to make anything that’s not utterly, devastatingly boring.

And now I’m deleting whatever South Park I had left on the DVR.

Team America: World Police. Trey Parker, 2004. *