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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 10/26/2007 : 20:48:18
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Rendition
All during the film I kept thinking of Missing and why I wasn't getting as involved in this one as I had done with that other some 25 years ago.
The similarities are more than passing:
> Both are loosely based on real events [admittedly Rendition extrapolates more to fiction]
> Both involve young women seeking their husbands who've gone missing in far away places, and, it appears, the help from their government they've assumed would be forthcoming - isn't.
>Neither film provides neat and tidy solutions, but raises uncomfortable questions that resonate from the personal to the political and back again.
> Both are directed by politically aware directors. Missing was one of Costa-Gavras's more accessible films wrapped very deliberately in a mainstream cover featuring the familiar box office faces of Sissy Spacek as the wife and Jack Lemmon as her ultra-conservative father-in-law.
Rendition's director, Gavin Hood has already proved with Tsotsi that he knows his way around the corrosive consequences of political corruption. He, too, presents crowd-pleasers such as Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon in atypical roles.
> Neither film shies away from implicating the United States in both direct and covert, tacit and active roles filling the Book of Shame which counter-balances all the Good Stuff - not least of which is the freedom to be able to get films like this made and shown.
So, given all the above, why is Missing - despite some iffy structural choices - a cinema classic combining intellect and passion, while Rendition - if it is cited at all in 25 years time - will be regarded with the cool assessment of a Washington Post front page?
The answer lies partly in the arc of change undergone by one of the characters in each case: Jack Lemmon's is profound as he discovers not only that he's misjudged his son and daughter-in-law as more than decent human beings because their politics was at odds with his - but that he's forced to question his own blind ideological loyalties. His painful journey is made more profound because it involves family.
Gyllenhall, as a US government operative more at home with spreadsheets than bloody shrouds, reluctantly deputizes for a colleague blown up by a suicide bomber. His new role is as an observer of another [deliberately unspecified] nation's torture techniques, used against Witherspoon's Egyptian-born husband and father of their young son and unborn baby.
Complicating the plot is the missing teen-aged daughter of Fawal the torturer, the apple of her father's eye, who's having an affair with a radicalized student. The boy's instructors choose him as a suicide bomber, information eventually learned by the Fawal.
That the experience changes both men is clear enough, and - in Gyllenhaal's case - results in his ultimately providing the means for the tortured man's escape. Not to take anything away from the sentiment of the character's actions, but his lack of personal involvement is inherently less dramatic than Lemmon's whereas Fawal's family matter is over-ridden for us by his brutality. He simply cannot serve as a point of identification for us, despite the uncomfortable questions raised by his very presence.
Which brings up the real problem: who exactly is the point of identification? It's very clear in Missing that Spacek's character plus what the script gurus call "the inciting incident" act as spark and catalyst for Lemmon's inner journey. There are many levels on which we can empathize with his character.
In Rendition the focus is so split we're left chasing this strand or that, and having to abandon it before we can feel for as well as understand each character. Gyllenhaal's CIA agent is tacked onto the story we're presented with initially - Witherspoon's story. And her character - admittedly somewhat hampered by her advanced pregnancy - is never presented as the more pro-active, courageous, and idealistically driven Spacek.
Witherspoon relies instead on a former schoolfriend who conveniently works as an aide to a US Senator [Alan Arkin in a dynamic and cogent cameo], whose career is far more important than any ideals. Both he and the friend will do what they can so long as it doesn't threaten their current bill, nor the oversight of the very powerful neo-con security chief played to perfection with southern belle ice by Meryl Streep.
All this division of labor in terms of characters which represent various elements of the overall story in the end serve to dissipate our emotional involvement.
Which is a shame, because the film does indeed have important things to say and will undoubtedly be uncomfortable viewing for many. Others will more readily recognize the political tide is turning as America tries to carve out a new sphere of influence dressed in new battle clothes.
And, to the film's credit, it does humanize both sides. It never condones the violence of either nor attempts to trivialize their justifications. These are devilishly complicated issues and Hood contributes intelligence to their dramatization.
I just wish he'd have delivered more raw emotion as well.
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 10/26/2007 20:48:53 |
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Demisemicenturian 
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 10/27/2007 : 23:08:04
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| The I.M.D.B. score for this did not look promising, although I thought I would still enjoy it since it was a case of preaching to the converted. However, it was better than I expected. Not brilliant, and of course rather worthy, but the performances are convincing and it does indeed avoid making things completely black and white (e.g. the goodies, and at one stage the audience, having doubts about the man's innocence). It doesn't give us anything too surprising, but for the people with their heads in the sand, it's very good that a film has been released covering the basics, e.g. saying that something isn't torture doesn't make it true and confessions under torture are worthless. I thought the time shift aspect of it was done well too, although doesn't the police chief when watching the video comment on "a woman" trying to stop the bomber? It's quite strange that he doesn't recognise his own daughter. |
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Rendition - spoilers I guess
