Two Days, Two Great Movies

In the past coupla days I've seen two great films, both of them Oscar 'contenders,' to use the parlance of our times. Both of these were officially released in 2005 but since I don't live in New York, I have to wait a few weeks for them to trickle down to my local googa-plex. Fortunately it was worth the wait.

Match Point was easily the better of the two, and was probably the best 05 movie I've seen, with the possible exception of Sin City. My only complaint, and it is a very minor one, is that it felt like Woody had gone over some of this ground before...in fact Match Point in some ways was a sort of Crimes & Misdemeanors 2: Younger and Hotter. Just as in that earlier Allen film there's a philandering hero who gets more than he bargains for and gets himself out of a tough situation by making some serious moral compromises, and yet, he's able to get away with it and move on. In Crimes & Misdemeanors the moral compromiser, played by Martin Landau in what I believe was an Oscar-winning role, sits down in the end and makes it manifestly clear that he doesn't care that he's murdered his lover and that he's happy to get on with his life with the knowledge that his success and wealth is secure. The ending of Match Point is more ambiguous, and I like that, the final shot is of Chris gazing out on the Thames from his gazillion pound flat looking serene but contemplative, surrounded by his family and all that he's 'earned.' We know that he's escaped, and that evil will go unpunished again, but we're less sure of whether or not the hero will be able to live with that.

I suppose that takes away some of the bleakness from what is an otherwise morally bankrupt picture. I don't use that phrase negatively, because that is part of the point of the film, morality is an illusion, 'faith is the path of least resistance' as the hero says and those of us who believe that in the end good will win out and evil will be punished are just deluding ourselves and are making ourselves sheep to be led to the slaughter by the supermen in society who see beyond all of the illusions. Of course that's complete nonsense...I think, but at the very least it's damn interesting and that's part of what makes Woody's films so exciting and memorable.

Of course it's well shot, but that goes without saying. It's written even better, but again that's no surprise. All of the little tricks and symbols worked for me, especially the match on action from the opening shot with the shot of Chris throwing the ring into the river. All of the Dostoyevsky allusions were great, especially the inspector scenes at the end. The middle of the film drags a bit, but is redeemed by its ending. The actors all worked for me, too, but honestly the strength of the performances has never mattered in great films, in my opinion, a talented director and storyteller overpowers poor acting...and Woody is certainly talented.

Syriana was also good, if not great. I think part of my problem with the film is that the revelations weren't really all that revleatory. Oh, you mean the American government engages in all kinds of shady dealings and illegal military operations to protect its interests in the Middle East? That protection of the powerful costs innocent lives, destroys the would be reformers, contributes to terrorism and extremism, and corrupts our own values? No way!

I also kept reading about how complicated and confusing the film was, but I think those reviewers were just reflecting how so much of American film has gone to shit, and how short the average attention span is. Syriana is not tough to follow if you are, to paraphrase my dad, smarter than the chair you're sitting in.

But is it really worth paying attention? Yes and no. As I said it didn't really cover any new ground for me. I didn't care that much about any of the characters, in fact in the end when one of the 'heroes' returns to the wife and child he'd abandoned for his cause I just asked myself: 'who cares?' When another ends his life in one of the final shots of the film by blowing up an oil tanker I didn't really give a damn. I did, however, care about the pretender to the throne played by my old friend Siddig el Fadil (you won't get away with a name change here, buddy) and I didn't like the way his story ended. Of course a lot of that affection was just carried over from DS9, I'm sure...

So if the characters don't work, and there really isn't anything to learn, what makes it good? Well, it's hard to say...there's a certain grittiness to the film that feels honest. We aren't manipulated by soaring overtures, the characters feel real and so does the situation, and it's shot in a Soderbergh sort of way that reminded me a lot of Traffic. Like Traffic, this film is trying to look at an issue from a lot of different viewpoints, and we do get some greater sense of the whole as a result of it. Syriana worked for me, even if it was not a complete success.