confucius said:
The Constant Gardener.
I dare the most stringent of film snobs on this board to slam this one.
(but I'll prolly get what I ask for won't I?)
Of course! Obviously, as resident film-hater, I rather loathed this film - I really did, btw, not just being obtuse. Have already been in trouble with Christian sister of best friend over this - actual anger on her part as to how anyone could dislike such a moving tale of personal courage, the battle against multinational corporations, love, anti-racism, etc.
The reason why I'd slam this film, despite its potentially appealing premise (revealing the actually existing evil of pharma-cons in Africa and elsewhere - obviously 'true' with regard to the current attitude towards generic versions of Aids drugs, the practice of 'experimenting' on deliberately misinformed patients, etc.).
Basically, I detested its myriad cop-outs:
1. That the suspicion that his pretty, politically-aware wife might be shagging the black activist (exploited to the hilt in the hospital scene where she holds a black baby after, you later find out, losing her own child. Plus the fact that she dies in the car with him after sharing a hotel room - maybe they didn't just have a cause in common, hint, hint!). But he's gay! So it's ok (although not for him, obviously, he gets strung up like a hare in some primitive homophobic-political attack. D'oh!).
The implication being that she had to be as pure and innocent as her political project - and if not, no one would have 'believed' her...let alone taken up her leads and so on (and how stoooopid was her husband for not realising that she was doing all this activism stuff while he worked for the British Gvt - wot, she was sitting at home knitting....but where were all the scarves?!) ...The modern version of the white man's burden - the flirty white wife! 'Keep her in check...obviously we all fancy her, but she's dangerous, you know!'
2. The personalisation of politics - systematic corruption via the powers that be, but only rendered true-to-life through the sad tale of one man and his wifey - cos no audience could deal with the issues outside of a sorry love story.
3. The colourful/grey dichotomy - Africa all dancing colours, pathos and rituals; England all grey, rainy and full of eeeevil corrupt politicos with dubious physiognomy. Subtle!
4. The fact that the 'constant gardener' only tended his plants obsessively about twice in the whole film, thus not really making enough of his supposed inverted, autistic tendencies to make his oh-so-late political revelations convincing.
Mind you, I loathed
City of God even more....