December 20, 2005

Syriana

Go see it. Now.

I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain or Munich or most of the other "best" movies of 2005. But I'll be very pleasantly surprised to see any that surpass this film, easily one of the best movies about politics, commerce and the state of the world that's been made in the last several years. If Stephen Gaghan is not an Oscar nominee for his screenplay it will be an outrage. This film does a superb job of threading together how the issues dealt with in this film affect an extremely broad swath of characters - including corporate chieftans, investment bankers, princes and kings, terrorists, immigrant workers, government bureaucrats, spies, consultants, and even the family connections of these people. It's a masterful achievement. And if you really want to get a broader perspective on the complexities of these issues, which are so important to us all, I encourage you to see this movie. Hell, I implore you to. It's just that good.

And of course it has pluses beyond the screenplay. It is a tense and suspenseful drama. In general, it's very well made. And while it might feel a little long in spots, all those moments feel worthwhile in the end. And of course the acting is very strong. George Clooney seems to be gaining the most attention in that regard, but to me the two clear standouts were Alexander Siddig (I wish he'd get an Oscar nomination for his work in this, he's wonderful) and Chris Cooper. I've long been a big Chris Cooper fan, but his work in this ... well, my admiration and respect for what he can do continues to increase.

The story in the film is basically a tragedy. But it's an engrossing one. And while entertaining, it can also help us better understand just how complicated and difficult many parts of our world are - platitudes from Crawford or Washington notwithstanding.

Posted by armand at December 20, 2005 03:00 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Movies


Comments

While you are totally right about the craft behind this film, and the masterful weaving of storylines, I had a really hard time appreciating Syriana. Maybe it had something to do with the translation to DVD, but I missed so much of what happened because of the sound. On the one hand, I understood why they did it... the hush hush nature of the subject matter, the clandestine meetings, the sub-conversations in the midst of a meeting. On the other, however, I just couldn't hear a good proportion of what was going on. Neither could the other people watching it with me, even though we cranked up the sound, switched from regular to surround and back, and basically fiddled with everything we could fiddle with to hear better. I don't even really think it was a volume thing per se. In the end, we all wanted to watch it again so see if we could fill in the gaps, because while it didn't keep us from understanding the storylines, I think we did miss out on a lot of the richness of detail in the interaction of the characters.

Posted by: binky at July 14, 2006 09:41 AM | PERMALINK

How very peculiar - I didn't have any trouble making out the words in the theater.

Posted by: Armand at July 14, 2006 10:56 AM | PERMALINK

i know what you're talking about binky, but a) a second viewing just last month really enriched the experience and b) i can't honestly tell you 60% of what's going on in any altman or toback movie either. as you note, i think that was sort of the point.

Posted by: moon at July 14, 2006 11:45 AM | PERMALINK
Post a comment









Remember personal info?