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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Syriana

17:51 / 15.03.06

I'm not entirely sure if I'm qualified to post on this film, because I left the cinema rather dazed, and I don't think anyone else has yet (having consulted the Mystic Oracle Barbelith Search Engine Go!) but has anyone else out there seen this?

It has a lot of stand-out moments, balanced, however, by a fair amount of statistics-exposition (which is, granted, a trend within film at the moment post the boom in documentary popularity) but I'm not entirely sure that the overall point ("The oil business is a convoluted, corrupt enterprise"?) came across through the masses of threads, although the streams do tend to cross more and more towards the ending.

In shorter terms - it's a very interesting film. Critically, though, I'm not of the opinion that a lot of the subject stands up to dramatisation. Granted, it did do it's "job" a lot better than, say, Lord of War , but that's not saying a great deal.

If this seems confused and rambling, it's because that's how I felt, along with a tiny bit of shock, upon leaving the cinema.

In summary - as a film, it's very well shot, and put together, but the points it was trying to make were muddled in some places and piercing in others.

What did anyone else think?

(Also - Alexander Siddig is always a plus...)

18:17 / 15.03.06

I really enjoyed it, cinematically, and narratively. I think Clooney is great anyway, but the scene between him and Christopher Plummer was perfectly played, some beautiful glances, and real menace to it. I'll write more later, but I think it's a great film.

18:28 / 15.03.06

I second everything said so far. In fact, I think "Lord of War", "The Constant Gardner", and "Syriana" pretty much sum it up what's fucked up with the world today. (I'm sure "brokeback Mountain", "Crash", and other have things to say, but I didn't watch them yet)

Keith, like a scientist

18:31 / 15.03.06

yeah, i know what you mean...it's very bewildering for awhile...I think it all matches up by the end, though...

asshole in the front row was trying to expounding upon his 'knowledge' throughout the entire film to try and impress his son, who was obviously embarrassed.

you know the very first shot of the movie? when the caption (I believe) "Tehran, Iran" (It might have been another city...I was distracted at the time...) comes up? The guy blurts out to the entire theater "The Asshole of The World!"

Probably the wrong film for him to go to...

20:36 / 15.03.06

The music was good. Clooney was good, while he was on screen. I suppose the strength this film has is it's bringing in punters because of Gorgeous George and the Oscar and an awful lot of them are going to be challenged by its premise.

The script was poor man's Le Carré though. It was a good short film with an awful lot of padding. It dawdled latterly and was ultimately leading to a fairly unexceptional denouement, as others have said. Surprising number of people just drifted off in the last half hour, in a way that's uncommon for West End cinemas.

20:43 / 15.03.06

I had a bit of an Emperor's Wearing No Clothes experience watching this film (and hearing it repeatedly praised to the heavens afterward). Did it make any sense as a story? Did everyone in the world but me understand all that corporate board speak? Was there any purpose to the choppy editing besides giving the illusion of suspense where really there was none? Sure, I got the overall "point" - Big Oil makes the world go 'round, Big Oil is a behemoth in global politics & economics, Big Oil slept with your girlfriend last night - but is that something I didn't already know and had to have Syriana make with a supposedly powerful impact? I just completely failed to get it, and that, I'm sure, is partly due to the two giant margaritas I'd had with dinner beforehand, but not entirely.

21:02 / 15.03.06

Thank you all for making me feel less alone in this. I think Xoc has summed up the script very well.

What interests me, having thought about it for a little longer, is that I think Syriana may be either kill or cure for a very specific section of filmmaking currently that has grown very quickly, very recently.

Ever since the boom in ticket / dvd sales for documentaries, leading up to Fahrenheit 9/11 and then, in it's wake (I believe), others such as The Yes Men and The Corporation films seem overall to be more 'willing' to tackle greater or more contentious issues in order to sell off the back of controversy - Lord of War for the Arms Industry, The Constant Gardener for the Pharmaceutical Industry, and now Syriana , among others.

Which means that, on the strength of Syriana's critical response and box office sales, we could be in for a lot more "Social Conscience" movies which is, dependent on your viewpoint, either a good thing or a bad thing. This, however, is the more 'favourable' of the potential outcomes, to my mind - in strictly relative terms, the 'cure'. This is because it tackles, out of the examples above, arguably the most pertinent Industrial topic at the moment, and it has awards and stars behind it.

On the other hand, because of the publicity, star power and awards, this may be potentially the last 'Social Conscience' movie for a while if it goes down like a lead balloon with the audience or, specifically, the critics - I've already heard it referred to (in Private Eye, no less) as Sorryana, which seems a bit previous.

I'm going to see it again, with someone else, then I'll revisit this idea, but for now - am I making sense, or just gibbering in the wind?

21:02 / 15.03.06

I just completely failed to get it, and that, I'm sure, is partly due to the two giant margaritas I'd had with dinner beforehand, but not entirely.

Bugger, I more or less failed to get it and had had no margaritas beforehand. Think I'll try the ibis approach to cinema in future.

Jawsus-son Starship

21:05 / 15.03.06

Ignoring the political aspect of the film completely, the bit of the film which stayed with me completely was

SPOILERS AHOY!

When Matt Damon and Amanda Peet were having the argument in the park, and she asked his "How does it look to be profiting of the death of your son?" and he tells her, "Fuck You." And that's the end of the relationship, like he looks at her and is so disgusted, be it at her, or himself, or his situation, whatever, that in that second he knows that their realtionships over. For some reason, that really struck me. Not sure why. Felt like that must be what it's like to be a man, the ability to write off anyone at any time.

SPOILERS OUTTRO

22:13 / 15.03.06

Think I'll try the ibis approach to cinema in future.

Indeed, I recommend it with a splash of Cointreau.

02:07 / 16.03.06

I rarely go to the movies without some sort of mind-altering substance going through my veins...which probably explans why I have such emotional responses to movies who denounces evils I already know about, as ibis puts it so witly.

you know the very first shot of the movie? when the caption (I believe) "Tehran, Iran" (It might have been another city...I was distracted at the time...) comes up? The guy blurts out to the entire theater "The Asshole of The World!"

yeah, says the Asshole in the Theatre.

Anyway, does anybody know what "syriana" means, and why it is the name of the damn movie?

Keith, like a scientist

03:32 / 16.03.06

there is a better explanation on the Syriana website, but it's apparently a real term that corporate types use to refer to the Middle East...sort of a mash of Syria and Indiana, as if the Middle East is becoming just another state of the US due to the business ties and influence.

08:07 / 16.03.06

Sid owned it.

miss wonderstarr

17:19 / 16.03.06

I'm just back from this movie and glad I read this thread. I kept dozing off, literally (asleep) and virtually (thinking about shopping, emails). It made me wonder if I just wasn't engaging because I'm politically ill-informed, but my suspicion is confirmed to some extent here -- that the political point was incredibly basic and obvious, and the story was almost entirely unengaging.

With Syriana, Lord of War, Constant Gardner and Munich I feel that they try to hitch a political agenda to a thriller/spy/action genre, and despite worthy aims, fail in the latter -- I found them all less successful in terms of involvement and narrative drive than, for instance, Bourne Supremacy, which isn't that tight or original a drama itself.

17:33 / 16.03.06

I think that's exactly what I was trying, hamfistedly, to say, MW - the plots of this and several other films out recently have very worthy aims and lose something entirely in the execution.

My first idea would be that even though the material is high-concept and packed with facts that need to be put across, the medium still has to appeal to enough viewers to make the project worthwhile if there is an element of drama at all otherwise the project in question will lose money and, by dint of this, will be viewed as a 'failure', causing a swing away from the trend.

Is there an ideal medium between fact, truth and dramatisation?

18:40 / 16.03.06

There was one line in the movie I found interesting. It's when the prince who was once a federation doctor in DS9 says that a country that has 5% of the world population and yet is responsible for 50% of the world's military budget is clearly in the beggining of its decadence process. That got me thinking. Not sure if it's correct, but it did.

miss wonderstarr

18:59 / 16.03.06

I'm pleased and surprised you think I summed you up right, Feverfew, as I just came back to try to put across more clearly what I meant to say.

Which is: though these political thrillers may be admirable in their political aims (though the central point of Syriana, as has been noted, is actually so basic I thought I'd missed it: "the oil business is really corrupt (and can breed terrorism as a response)"), they're not really very good as thrillers.

I disagree a little, Feverfew, with your point that the genre (if such it is) is in danger of losing credibility and interest because the stories don't work so well. I think their political worthiness, and I don't mean that dismissively, means these films are getting an easier ride and a better press as thrillers than they would if they were about some generic enemy and a traditional international spy.

Having now seen at least four of them, I found myself looking forward (after Syriana) to something relatively mindless but possibly accomplished and technically effective, like Firewall.

17:21 / 18.03.06

I think, MW, that I may have been staring at the stars and not at my untied shoelaces when I was trying to make the connection between political worthiness and drama, because you're right - the Political Thriller genre is in no immediate danger of dying out, not by a long shot.

If anything, I'd like to expand the idea, as you put it, of "Credibility" within the political thriller - obviously, recently, the way to attain this has been to pick a topical issue with many quotable statistics and the possibility of eye-catching set pieces (Here Lord of War springs to mind, with the expositional statistical dialogue used to prove points usually followed by shots of guns, tanks, missiles etc).

Syriana is on a credibility level on a par with, say, The Constant Gardener in my humblest opinion because it deals with subsurface pertinent issues - those that affect many, many people but aren't concentrated on to an extent in the media (other than "Rising Petrol Prices" stories) - the phrase I'd chose would be 'quietly confident' over LoW, which is, I think, more 'smug' in it's tackling of the issues concerned.

Also, when you say an 'easier ride', could you pick up on that? I know you mention 'better press', but when you say that films of this genre are currently getting an 'easier ride', is this in relation to the audience, the critics, or both?

Oh, and if you want something mindless but surprisingly fun, I recommend The Matador - from one aspect it's basically Pierce Brosnan giving the Bond producers two fingers, but it's more than that, in places.

18:21 / 22.03.06

Brief bump;

Just saw this again, and maybe it's the second viewing, maybe it's after reading this thread, but the film does seem to hold you down and slap you with the issues concerned.

I will be interested to see the DVD features, however.

miss wonderstarr

18:31 / 22.03.06

Also, when you say an 'easier ride', could you pick up on that? I know you mention 'better press', but when you say that films of this genre are currently getting an 'easier ride', is this in relation to the audience, the critics, or both?

Yes, sorry, I only meant a better press really: an easier ride critically. Because they are dealing with worthy topics and seen as bravely uncovering corporate wrongdoing, I suggest that critics may be more likely to overlook the lack of gripping engagement that they'd condemn in a more conventional thriller (ie. one with a mysterious league of agents from an unnamed country vs a semi-superspy seeking revenge for his partner's death).

Perhaps some people also go to see these films because they think they'll be educated about important world issues, too, or because, maybe, indirectly, they feel they're doing some kind of minor good deed by even seeing the film and increasing their own awareness/supporting a worthy project. So it could also translate into better audience.