Tribeca 2007: Day Five

-Taxi to the Dark Side
In this new documentary from Alex Gibney, the sad tale of Dilawar, a taxi driver from Yakubi, Afghanistan, opens a narrative on how torture became widespread as a panicked, desperate response to terrorism. The film covers the same territory as The New York Times or The New Yorker, and the picture isn't really worth a thousand words, considering that by now everybody who would be interested in this film has seen the infamous Abu Ghraib photos. But film is perhaps the most compelling medium for investigative research: the more carefully edited and thought out the documentary, the more powerful the ultimate message, especially when you give dramatic arcs to the characters serving as your talking heads (in this case, military soldiers brought up on charges).

Just as in Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Gibney manages to convey all the necessary technical details of law that allowed the Bush Administration to, in effect, circumvent the law, reinterpret portions of the constitution, and pardon themselves of any wrongdoing that might eventually be uncovered. The bullet points are like live ammo, and terms like "PUC" (person under control) and "force drift" (when you slowly step up the interrogative measures from what's accepted under Geneva to what is deemed "necessary" to extract information) are easy to comprehend -- or easy to mock, as with the government's much-hyped semantic difference between NEC/NLEC (Non-Enemy Combatant/No Longer Enemy Combatant).

The evidence of wrongdoing is so apparent that it is often difficult to continue watching Taxi to the Dark Side: the rule of law has eroded, and the ultimate fare of this one-way ride to disaster has yet to be calculated. From the pop culture indoctrination of 24 to the ghoulish reality of our own terrorist-breeding camps (if they weren't before, they will be now), Gibney covers it all. There can be no doubt that psychological torture is as bad (if not worse) than the physical-- sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will drive you mad--and worse still is murder, which one prosecuted soldier accurately describes as "the ultimate torture."

-Chasing 3000
The mark of a good movie is when it is able to make even the sappiest of scenes work to its advantage. With Chasing 3000, director Gregory J. Lanesey and writer Bill Mikita are able to turn their demonstrable love of baseball (specifically Roberto Clemente) from mush into gold. The framework is the weakest portion, with Ray Liotta playing a grown-up Mickey who is racing traffic to get to a Padres game that is honoring his idol, but it soon relegates Liotta to a narrator, and focuses us on a story of two brothers, Mickey (Trevor Morgan) and Roger (Rory Culkin), their love for each other and for baseball, and on the romanticized '70s themselves.

This isn't a sports-centered film, though: instead, it trails the two brothers as they make a cross-country road trip to see Clemente make his 3000th hit. It's a feel-good film, made all the more emotional by Roger's MD, a medical condition that is never treated as a liability -- only as another obstacle to overcome. Being a kid's flick, there's no real danger of anyone dying in the film, which takes some of the suspense out of the boxcar jumping, or the midnight motorcycle ride, but these are the familiar limitations of family entertainment, and the moral lessons of the film are well worth any of the guff on the side.

-The Air I Breathe
Jieho Lee's fantastic urban fable is an allegory for the four emotional cornerstones of life (according to a Chinese proverb), but also a striking visual interpretation of our existence as well. Four subtly overlapping stories draw us in to a world in which innocent businessmen risk their lives for a taste of the something more that is happiness (Forest Whitaker, the opposite of Idi Amin here), where zoned-out pop stars living under the thumb of those with money have a chance to dig themselves out from their own sorrow (a generic Sarah Michelle Geller), where washed-up thugs understand what it means to live a life free of predestination (a brooding Brendan Fraser), and lonely doctors get a second chance to prove themselves and their love (a manic Kevin Bacon). Of course, they'll have to contend with mobsters (Andy Garcia, on loan from Ocean's Twelve) and their nephews (Emile Hirsch, who with smarter management could rival Shia LaBeouf), but this whimsically dark tale is exquisitely executed and ultimately inspiring. For all that it is a fragmented swirl of coincidences, so is life, and so the film serves to remind us of the pure mystery of circumstance that delivers each new child into the world (and what a beautiful, terrible, beautiful world).

FILM: "The Last King of Scotland"

The Last King of Scotland may be remembered as a political film for the ease in which it portrays the circular violence of Uganda, or it may be remembered as a period piece, blending culture with the grainy colored textures of 70s film. Some may just remember it for the overwhelming presence of Forest Whitaker, who takes on the charismatic butcher, Idi Amin. Whatever the case, The Last King of Scotland is a memorable film, distinctly shot in sharp hues and with shaky angles, and frightening in its unrestrained look at the behind-the-scenes trauma of a war.

It's hard to do a historical thriller (as the well-read will always know what's coming) but director Kevin Macdonald keeps us on our toes by keeping the focus on a foreign doctor, Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), even in scenes where Whitaker is all but demanding our utmost attention. This young Scotsman gives a credible mien of naivety when the bodies start piling up, and it also makes the rebel forces out to be the villains (an impressive reminder to make about our otherwise clear-cut definitions of “good” and “bad”). After all, only a criminal would ambush a procession of cars and take shots at Dr. Garrigan—we manage to forget that Idi Amin's sitting right next to him.

In fact, we manage to forget that Idi Amin is a psychopathic killer; at least up until the point that Whitaker reminds us, with a savage reversal, that he is far from the farting, weak-minded clown that he has painted himself to be. He is a jovial bear, yes, but he is also a violent killer too, and when he finally begins to turn on Garrigan—slowly, just enough to make us believe he's having a bad day—we can almost see Amin as a victim too, a prisoner of his own paranoia. Macdonald sustains the illusion by carefully choosing the light in which he casts Amin – for example, the first time we see him, he is in the background, standing posed like a Greek hero, with a tribe of African villagers clustered around his tank in adoration. It's a brief glimpse out of the window as Garrigan enters the country, but even then, we are drawn to the dominating presence of this dictator.

It's easy to create a villain, but to do what Whitaker and Macdonald have done here—to make a villain into a likable character—is miraculous. What's more, they actually turn us against the protagonist, which is hard to do since he's a cherubic, younger version of Ewan McGregor. Films are nothing more than a matter of perspective, and for all the loose shots of the film, it's surprising to realize how utterly in control this director is. By the time the real terrors start—and there are some graphic scenes toward the end of this piece—it's too late to get out of the theater. We're as implicit in what we've seen as Garrigan himself, which I assume is part of the point. We enjoy Whitaker's performance, but that means we also, to some extent, enjoy the character that he's playing. We spend the majority of the film basking in the warm glow of the touristy side of Uganda, all to happy to leave the dank confines of the backward clinic in Uganda that Dr. Gallaghan starts in, which is another strike against us.

There are a few poor choices in the later half of the film: Amin's sudden aggression toward Garrigan is explainable by the fact that he's been cuckolded by the “good” doctor. Though the punishment he comes up with is overly sadistic, even in this moment of intense brutality, it's hard to completely disparage Amin. He is confronting betrayal with the only method he knows of correcting it, and when he realizes that he has gone too far, that he has lost it, he's once more the playful bear again, a puzzled, ill-at-ease soldier, just looking to be loved by the world. But this too is the point; Giles Foden's novel isn't interested in a “black” villain; he wants all the shades of gray in between, too.

I wholeheartedly recommend this film: the relentless pacing, the masterful scenework, and the travelogue footage all blend together to make The Last King of Scotland the first thing I've not panned this year. This is your chance to see character going hand-in-hand with cinema, and one more reminder of how powerful film can be.

[First posted to Gather, 2/13]