Along River Jordan

Syriana (2005), directed by Steven Gaghan, was probably best known for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar that the film fetched for its leading man—George Clooney. What many of us missed (no numbers on this though) was the pivotal parts played by the rather impressive cast, which included Matt Damon and Jeffrey Wright, in this well-rounded and well-told political drama that relies on facts from old CIA espionage files to construct a timely tale of intrigue and deceit at the highest levels.
The petroleum politics that lies at the heart of the ‘clash of civilization’ between the United States and the oil-rich Arab world forms the captivating background to the thriller, so does the fundamental argument that pervades the construction of the ‘Bad Muslim’—the English-speaking, educated, politically ambitious, reformist Prince of an Emirate who repels American propaganda to hand out an oil deal to the Chinese—and the ‘Good Muslim—the wine-swilling American stooge, the younger Prince of the same Emirate, in mainstream American cinema. The demarcation is stark and compartmentalized. The characters are etched out correctly, to convey the gist of the matter to the viewer—American double game in the Middle East.
The creation of a terrorist is also documented well enough, in the form of the young Pakistani boy who is sacked from his lowly job as a migrant worker in an oil rig. Not only does he end up in the local madrasa, watching tapes featuring Osama bin Laden, he is the protagonist of the suicide attack on an American ship (ostensibly taking off from the suicide bombing of the USS Cole in 2000). Thus, is all boils down to the emergence of the United States as the key driver of Islamic fundamentalism, owing to its incendiary and one-sided Middle East policy—the propping up of puppet regimes in the Arab world in order to control the global demand and supply of oil. Using multiple, parallel storylines, Syriana manages to convey the moot point pretty well.
The American energy analyst (Matt Damon) comes to appreciate his employer’s—the ‘Bad Muslim’ Prince—point of view as he outlines plans to usher some semblance of democracy in the Emirate. The ‘Good Muslim’ Prince, meanwhile is working against his brother to gain control of the throne, as well as his ailing father—the reigning Emir—with the help of the Americans. But he is ‘good’ because he is with the Americans. The embittered, double-crossed CIA agent (George Clooney) lurks in the background for most of the film, and makes time towards the end to warn the ‘Bad Muslim’ of the impending rocket attack on him and his family as they travel across the desert. Turned away by the Agency once his utility as a Middle East expert is over, Clooney realizes his folly (involvement in an assassination attempt on the ‘Bad Muslim’). Also taking up considerable reel space in the film is the story of the merger of two American petroleum giants and the discovery, by a young attorney, of the nefarious ways in which the deal was brokered and the blood that was spilt. Perhaps a tad slow in parts, Syriana is a powerful indictment of American foreign policy.

The mind of a murderer

One usually expects a whodunnit to follow the oft beaten path, or that’s how most people view murder stories as they unfold on screen. With Hitchcock, its different. The first thing that one notices about Psycho (1960) is the sheer paucity of people or characters in the narrative. Minimalist. As the drama jostles its way forward, the realism of the plot hits home. There isn’t a necessity of having any extra characters. The ones that are there captivate you and how. There’s the runaway petty thief, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), the woman who keeps a straight face while scampering away from town with a stash of cash, $ 40,000 no less, all belonging to her employer’s client. So, what does Ms Crane do next? She keeps the suspicious cop at bay, dusts off the queries of the curious garage salesman and heads away into a cash-rich future? Not really!
Alighting out of her rental car, away from the highway, Ms Crane comes across a run-down motel and…..Norman Bates. Good ol’ Norman Bates. He lives alone…well…with his “mentally ill” mother and runs (if twelve out of twelve empty cabins is called business) the Bates Motel, hidden away from the glare of the headlights speeding along the highway. As Norman Bates, Anthony Perkins is unmatched. He fumbles and stammers his way through the scene where Ms Crane is munching on a light dinner brought around by, why, Bates himself, betraying just a hint of his satanic, psychotic personality. Absolute brilliance. Then, Ms Crane is killed, stabbed repeatedly by what appears to be an apparition (ostensibly Bates’ mother) and Bates cleans up, pushing her car away into a slush pond, completely oblivious of the cash that the woman was carrying. One remembers Bates peeping through a hole in the parlour wall as Ms Crane undresses.
In obvious panic, Ms Crane’s sister hires the services of private investigator Arbogast…to find her lost sister…and , of course, the stolen money! The detective, arriving at the Bates motel, encounters…well who else but Norman Bates. The bumbling Bates, reveals after considerable cajoling that Ms Crane did come in to spend the night. Unsatisfied with the responses, Arbogast decides to check in on the old mother to know if she met the woman. He, too never returns. Bates is again found standing by the slush pond, apparently smiling to himself.
Its now the turn of the other Ms Crane and Marion Cranes’ boyfriend Sam to take a trip to the Bates Motel. Before that they meet the town Sheriff, only to be told that Norman Bates’ old mother died years ago. Convinced that the man at the counter at the motel has something to do with the disappearance of her sister, Lila Crane ventures (much to the dismay of Norman Bates) into his large house, to find his ailing old mother. The rest is one of the best pre-climax and climax scenes ever shot in a psycho thriller. The explanation for Bates’ crimes is even more macabre. Utterly psychotic and hideously neurotic who keeps stuffed dead birds in his parlour, Bates smiles devilishly into the camera as the police cracks the cases, one by one (apparently he killed more people than Just Ms Crane and the detective). Psycho can be watched for a feral performance by Perkins and, of course, the mind-boggling justification of his heinous crimes. Bates’ body harbours two personalities, that of his mother apart from his own. After murdering his mother and her lover years ago, he does not bury his mother’s body, but keeps it in the old house. Whenever, Bates, the man, is sexually drawn to another woman, the “mother” takes charge, compelling Bates to kill the object of his desire.
The plot is a case study of the portrayal of desire, especially physical desire, on celluloid. With the murders and the pychosis in the background, Psycho is pure genius exploration of the human mind and the animal desires that is contains.

Friendship...pain...revenge

I remember being unable to sleep half the night after watching Barry Levinson’s Sleepers way back in 1998. Probably because the images of four teenagers being repeatedly brutalized by sadistic prison guards kept me awake. But did it really? Wasn’t the fact that the boys came back ten years later to avenge their humiliation a greater pull? In hindsight, maybe it was. That emotion does not change, eleven years later as I switch off the TV after watching the film again. The ensemble cast of the film—Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Bacon, Brad Pitt, Robert De Niro—had gotten me interested in the film in 1998. In 2011, I watched the film again for what it really was. A brutal, sad, but strong story well-told. Based on a controversial book by Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers attempts to peel the layers off the truth behind juvenile justice in the United States of America, no less. And did we think that juveniles languishing in remand homes in India were victims of sexual abuse, rapes, and prolonged torture! Carcaterra is the protagonist of the film who, along with his friends—Michael Sullivan, John Riley, and Thomas Marcano, all growing up in Hell’s Kitchen—pull a prank on a hotdog vendor, which goes horribly wrong. The result is 18 months of incarceration at the upcountry Wilkinson’s Home for Boys. From the frame where the guard Sean Nokes (played by Kevin Bacon) forces the young Carcaterra to strip in front of him, to the scenes—shot in black and white—of rape and abuse, the film is demanding…in places painful, where except for the sporadic meetings with the local priest, Father Bobby (Robert De Niro), the boys are pretty much on their own.

Out of the correction centre, and ten years later, John and Tom are small-time gangsters, Carcaterra (Jason Patric) is a clerk at the New York Times and Michael (Brad Pitt, quite remarkable) is a district attorney. The rest of the film is a courtroom drama with both De Niro and Dustin Hoffman (as the defence attorney) pitching in with brilliant performances. John and Tom shoot Nokes dead and are put on trial. Michael and Lorenzo—Shakes to his friends—plan the proceedings of the trial so that Nokes’ friend and torturer-in-arms is brought on as a witness and humiliated in full view of the jury, another one in the group is arrested and tried for dealing drugs, the fourth member of the gang is shot by the brother of a boy the former guards killed at Wilkinson’s. Revenge taken, the boys spend an evening—their last one together—before walking away. As the story goes, John and Tom were found dead, shot at close range just shy of their thirtieth birthdays; Michael quit practice immediately after the trial and lives alone in England; while Shakes is elevated from clerk to trainee reporter at the New York Times. Michael never married. Young lives lost forever. Powerful!