The Constant Gardner- quite the movie, we thought. The first thing we noticed about it was the use of color in the movie. It's visually stunning- and at times, the movie hits you over the head with contrasts in color (if you see it, compare the war tones of his flashback at the Chelsea flat, with the gray rainy weather as he stands alone, and tormented by grief, outside the window.) In some ways it reminded me of Syriana, but it's a much more human story. The cinematography of Africa is some of the best I've ever seen. Love to know what anyone else here thought.
(FWIW I disagree they stripped the beauty out of Africa. If you look at some of the scenes- the lovely children, at the end of the film, photographed by the rubbish dump- the film tried to give us the beauty of the people, despite the hardship and ugliness of their lives- and since that's such a theme in the book, it's too bad the reviewer missed that.)
seattlepi.nwsource.com
Interesting point here, about the world ignoring Africa, but that Hollywood has noticed it:
'Constant Gardener': Smart thriller packs a punch
By WILLIAM ARNOLD
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER MOVIE CRITIC
The rest of the world may be ignoring the plight of modern Africa, but Hollywood sure isn't. A long string of films -- "I Dream of Africa," "Beyond Borders," "Hotel Rwanda," "In My Country" and many more -- have splashed its problems all over the big screen in recent years.
The latest is "The Constant Gardener," an engrossing, intelligent, emotionally powerful and mostly well-acted adaptation of a thriller by John Le Carré that works as both a nail-biting adventure and a sobering lesson on the ongoing apocalypse of the continent.
Le Carré's hero is Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), a mild-mannered British diplomat in Kenya who, as the film opens, learns that his wife, Tessa (Rachel Weisz), has been murdered while traveling through bandit country in the company of a Kenyan doctor.
From here, the script flashes back to trace the course of their whirlwind romance and marriage in England, and her brief tenure in Kenya, where her idealism and outspoken criticism of the corrupt power structure made her an embarrassment to the Nairobi diplomatic community.
At the same time, the story moves forward as the grieving Justin discovers that Tessa had secretly uncovered proof of a diabolical conspiracy and this knowledge forces him from the complacency of his garden (hence the title) and makes him a target and a man on the run.
The film is as gripping as any thriller of recent times, and it accomplishes this primarily from a script by Jeffrey Caine ("Goldeneye") that seems to have translated all the nuances and levels of one of Le Carré's best-plotted and most absorbing novels.
The top end of the casting also is excellent. Fiennes hasn't had a role this gentle and appealing since "The English Patient" and Weisz is letter perfect as a plucky woman who achieves grace by channeling her neuroses and basic nosiness into a noble cause.
Some of the other performances are similarly striking -- particularly Gerald McSorley (the unforgettably nasty villain of "Veronica Guerin") as a decent British Embassy intelligence officer, and Pete Postlethwaite as a somewhat demented missionary doctor.
Cameraman César Charlone also builds an excruciating end-of-the-world edginess by concentrating his frame on overcrowded shanty towns and bleak, deforested landscapes and avoiding almost entirely the visual poetry of "Out of Africa" and other Hollywood Africa movies.
If anything, the film overdoes its job of visually stripping Kenya of its beauty, and it's marred by the performances of Danny Huston, who can't get his British accent down, and Bill Nighy, who is just too familiar as a comedian to be taken seriously as the chief villain.
Another minus is the overly busy direction of Fernando Meirelles. His MTV-grandstanding worked for "City of God," but it's just not necessary for, and gets in the way of, a script this literate and solid. In the end, "The Constant Gardener" works in spite of, not because of him.
P-I movie critic William Arnold can be reached at 206-448-8185 or williamarnold@seattlepi.com. |
