Syriana

[polkablues]

Confoundit!  I hate loving a film before I've seen it.  It will always disapoint.  I will dream about it and the story won't seem right when I see the film because my subconcience has already filled in the gaps between the moments we see in the trailers.  This happend with Jurrasic Park when I was 11.  It happened with Eternal Sunshine when I was 23.  There's a little kid inside my head that loves films more than I do and wants to see them in a very childish, non-critical kind of way.  My concious, rational thought awake state persona always has an open, critical mind, but deep down inside, my superego will live inside of these movies.  Freud has been shit on in recent decades.  His critics are wrong.

uh.. so what'd u think of syriana?

I don't think he's seen it yet.  But he seems to be anticipating it, though he is wary that his level of anticipation is merely setting himself up for an experience that fails to meet his heightened expectations.  And he holds young children hostage and disregards the past fifty years of psychoanalytical research.

I think.

[JG]

This film is deadly serious. It's also really good. It's also really confusing - I feel like I need to go do some research before I even attempt to write more about the specifics of the narrative.

I just saw it, and the plot was so confusing that it defintiley took away from the movie.   I've never felt so stupid after a movie.   It was certainly well done, although some stuff felt a little off.   I agree mostly with what Modage said. Characters weren't developed enough (they came off more as symbols than real characters) and subplots were thrown in that seemed a little contrived.  I feel like this would have been better off as a mini-series.  It had too much to say and not enough time to say it.    The character suffered because of the political message.  I barely read anything about the movie before seeing it, so I was lost a lot of the time.   I recomend for anyone seeing it to have some knowledge about the characters and plot before going into it.

I can't say how I really feel about the movie until I see it several times, but as of now:  2.5/4

[Gold Trumpet]

I'm only on a one viewing basis with this film, but the film did not have to be as confusing as it was. Easy facts could have gone a long way. The relationship of Clooney to Beirut was that his character was based off the CIA agent Bob Baer who was working in Beirut in 1985 when the American Embassy was bombed. Baer, who lost many friends, went on a personal mission to find out who was responsible. He dug into so much dirt and raised so many alarming flags of United States laziness that he was taken out of Beirut and relocated. For the rest of his career, he tried to get back into Beirut, but only doing so for minor work here and there. The film really took an insider's viewpoint to that story. The clues were here and there, but mostly inside jargon the entire way. I imagined a lot of people confused while watching it.

This films feels like a film essay. Unlike Traffic, it makes little attempts to wrap every issue into a human story to make the issues discernable. The characters are really symbols for the greater point. The film is trying to be an authority on Middle Eastern politics, but the general-ness and vagueness of a 2 hour film doesn't do it. I saw so many issues of the Middle Eastern situation highlighted but never with emphasis. If this film was the work of an editor chopping up a 12 hour film, I'd say congratulations. But its just 'good attempt' for the filmmakers.

[modage]

yes, in the AICN interview Gaghan said...

but I was writing SYRIANA. I had written a lot. I was feeling disconnected from the material. Like it just didn't have the heart that I thought it would need. It felt too intellectual or something. So I was talking to a friend of mine... and, um... it was actually Miranda July, who I had met at the Sundance Labs. I had read her script, and I thought ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, and I was just... I was e-mailing with her about something or another, and I remember saying, "I just feel so disconnected from what I'm doing in a way." And I had told her in this same e-mail... I had described my son having had a nightmare, and that I went down and picked him up, and he immediately said, "I want to look out the window," and then I went and I held him. And... and... it was around the time that his mother and I split up. And we were alone. She wasn't there. So I was alone in the house with the kids, and I just... held him in the window... for like two hours... and we looked out at the streetlight. And, uh... it was really powerful for me, y'know? And Miranda wrote me back and said, "That's what the movie's about. That's what you're trying to do." And I was just, "Oh, yeah."

i dont think he quite cracked that nut.  but a very noble effort.

[w/o horse]

Jeffrey Wright did another fucking awesome job.  I also thought the two princes were great.  One essentially played a frat kid but he did it well.

JW's father - that subplot I was lost on.  Was it in there to make sense of why he turned down a drink when offered one?  Seems like a long walk. 

Other than that everything seemed connected and worked fine.  It needed perhaps one less US History credit and a couple more Humanities/Fine Arts, but fuck it, I'll take a pure political thriller any day over The Skeleton Key or Stealth etc.  It made Ghostboy want to walk, you know.

C because I don't want to watch it again.

[cron]

aaa i very much  want to see this now. i can't think what was the last time the buzz of a movie was that the movie is complex and everyone seems geniunely what the fucked. awesome.


it also has fat george .

[ono]

But to me it seems like it's a "what the fuck" because everyone's confused because it's spread so thin and tries to do so much.  Not because it's a labyrinth of a story worth exploring much like certain thrillers and mysteries and the type of film generally garners so much respect here.

[cron]

yeah ebert and two other critics i trust said that it's complex. that's my basis, i haven't seen the movie. have you seen it¿

[Ravi]

have you seen it¿

Translation:  have you seen it?

[Weak2ndAct]

Here's some what the fucked-ness from Ebert's answer man column.  I had to reread this, so I can't imagine having to see it on screen.  Can't wait!

Q. I have read more than one review mentioning Tim Blake Nelson's "brilliant" speech about corruption in "Syriana." The speech has been compared to Michael Douglas' speech in "Wall Street" (1987) that defends greed. I haven't seen the movie yet but I'd love to just be able to read the speech.

Greg Nelson, Chicago

A. The speech is the work of Stephen Gaghan, the Oscar-winning writer and director of the film. Nelson plays Danny Dalton, a Texas oilman, who is speaking to Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright), a lawyer investigating a merger of two oil companies. Gaghan supplies this transcript:

Danny: Some trust fund prosecutor, got off-message at Brown, thinks he's gonna run this up the flagpole, make a name for himself, maybe get elected some two-bit, no-name congressman from nowhere, with the result that Russia or China can suddenly start having, at our expense, all the advantages we enjoy here. No, I tell you. No, sir. (mimics prosecutor) "But, Danny, these are sovereign nations." Sovereign nations! What is a sovereign nation, but a collective of greed run by one individual? "But, Danny, they're codified by the U.N. charter!" Legitimized gangsterism on a global basis that has no more validity than an agreement between the Crips and the Bloods! (Beat) ... Corruption charges. Corruption? Corruption ain't nothing more than government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulation. That's Milton Friedman. He got a goddamn Nobel Prize. We have laws against it precisely so we can get away with it. Corruption is our protection. Corruption is what keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are prancing around here instead of fighting each other for scraps of meat out in the streets. (Beat) Corruption ... is how we win.

[noyes]

just caught Stephen Gaghan on Charlie Rose and shit do i wanna see this movie now.
what an amazing full hour interview that was.
also reminded me that i need the Traffic criterion.

[Ultrahip]

i saw the charlie rose interview too, it was great. it makes me really happy i got to meet him. he is quite an impressive fellow. everyone should really see this movie, i don't think it's as complicated and uncomrehensible as people are making it out to be. it's matter of fact, there's just a lot happening, so keep your head up.

[SHAFTR]

The plot is complex, but I didn't think it was confusing.  There are a few points that I need to clear up for myself, but another viewing or a little research will do that for me.  Either way, I left this movie disgusted.  I'm not ignorant to the things that go on, but it still bothers me when I see it played out.  There are notable scenes that stick out and hit you because of the political side to it, and other scenes that hit you through an emotional side.

It definitely needs another viewing, but it stands right now as a very good 05 release.

[killafilm]

I'm a big fan of this.

All of the performances were top notch.  I really thought that Clooney was the stand out though.  While I really liked how there was a certain disconnect from all sides, it didn't bring you (or at least me) in the same way that Traffic did.  It all felt very real, I think in large part due to Elswits photography.  There was a lot going on, but never too much, I feel like you have to step away from it and think of it as a Mosaic.  Just wrap yourself around in it.

B+

[JG]

I feel stupid that people got this and I didn't.  Honestly, I'm a smart guy and I just couldn't follow.  For those that understood it-- did u read about the movie at all (including this thread)?  I had no idea that the plot would be so difficult to follow.  I had no idea what the movie was about other than oil.  I think knowing a little coming in would be helpful.