Not Coming to a Theater Near You

The Constant Gardener / UK / 2005

Reviews of this film seem to have rested heavily on whether the critic in question feels that the film’s politics are the right ones. But aside from the substance of the film’s activism, the most potent political gesture the film makes is in the simple fact that it strives to portray present-day Africa on celluloid. This is a rare enough occurence in itself, but what is still more astonishing is the manner in which it is accomplished. Meirelles and his team are able to employ the full-range of a cinematographic and post-production bag of tricks to assemble an image of the continent that veers from ravishing to disheartening to exotic to hyperreal (and back again) in seconds. That the result is stylized without being unfaithful, dazzling without being numbing, is perhaps the film’s greatest ideological triumph.

The rest of the film is admirably composed, even if it ultimately feels a bit of a shame that it all has to come down to good guys and bad guys. There are enough of the requisite pleasures of the thriller to hold one’s attention, though there is one extraneous (and badly edited) car chase and a rather perfunctory third act wrap-up.

Still, the film is thoroughly held together by Ralph Fiennes, who here delivers as good a performance as I’ve seen from him on film. It seems that Fiennes and his agent have finally clued into the fact that Ralph is not the dashing leading man type (The Avengers, anyone?) but is rather better suited to the vulnerable, poncey sort of character we find here. Fiennes makes the emotional undercurrent of the film — how a man comes to understand his wife, and understand how she understood him — not only credible, but utterly heartbreaking.

by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Focus Features 35mm Print
12 Sep 2005 1:14 AM | Submit Comment