Reviews

The USA stumbles upon a deadly alien pathogen. Instead of destroying it, it initiates an evil and deadly experiment. It moves the experiment to a remote country where it will not be noticed and, should it get out, it will be blamed on someone else. The experiment causes the pathogen to gain in function, becoming enormous and world-threatening. The pathogen gets out and spews a jillion pointy agents into the atmosphere that glom onto anyone they can, causing them to become lethally infected. The USA denies responsibility for the catastrophe.

Set aside what you personally believe about the pandemic. Does any of that sound the least bit familiar?

This film features beautiful cinematography, an exotic locale, and an outstanding cast, including John Hurt, Danny Huston, Guy Pearce, Emily Watson, David Wenham, and Ray Winstone. Its grim depiction of the Australian frontier in the 1880's features a character who might best be described as Manichaean: Evil, incarnate, and among us.

Various precedents for this premise come to mind. When, in Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, society has no answer for unbridled evil, The Stone Guest intervenes and drags the villain down to Hell. In Peter Greenaway's film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover, a post-Enlightenment world has no supernatural foil for the villain, who marauds unopposed by any civil authority. At the outset of The Proposition we understand that Arthur Burns (Huston) and those in his thrall, are capable of the most outrageous atrocities and care nothing about human society. Who in this world can withstand such a creature? We are shown at every turn how Burns and his clan seem to be as natural to this harsh, unforgiving environment as desert scorpions. In contrast to their very nature are Martha Stanley (Watson) and Eden Fletcher (Wenham), who choose to pretend their rose bushes and fine saddle horses are no more incongruous here than if they were back in England. It is their unexamined assumption that British justice can also be transplanted to the Outback that places Captain Stanley – Martha's devoted husband and Fletcher's dutiful enforcer – at the center of this story.

The Proposition is really the project of Nick Cave, a songwriter who created both its screenplay and its musical score. Both are adequate for the telling of this engaging story, but what of its archetypal monster? The Judge in Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian, seems to be more than a man and more like a force of nature. Whether man or phenomenon, there seems to be some terrible, obscure, operative principle behind him. The fact that we are unable to imagine what that principle may be is what makes him so terrifying.

There doesn't appear to be any such principle behind Arthur Burns. Languishing in squalor in his desert lair, he pursues no agenda, beyond eating rancid meat and swatting at flies. Yet he knows poetry, appreciates a well-sung song, and never fails to admire a beautiful sunset. The evil which Burns embodies and perpetrates in his godforsaken corner of the world is, to be sure, terrible enough. But it stands little chance of withstanding civilization's encroachment, whether Captain Stanley can foresee that day or not.

Which brings us to the film's title. Stanley charges Charlie Burns (Pearce) with the task of bringing his big brother's career to an end. Charlie must choose between barbarism and humanity, but why does he choose as he does? I am not convinced Cave has created a character who knows.

This film has a lot in common with Robert Altman's deconstruction of the American frontier myth, McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Johnny Depp's "William Blake" is as ill-fated as Warren Beatty's character, the streets are as dismally muddy, and Neil Young's jangly soundtrack even strikes a similar monotone to Leonard Cohen's songs. Both also display the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. If you already know and love the real Blake's poetry you'll enjoy how it is used in this film; if not you should be inspired to check it out. No need for me to belabor the symbolism here - you can have fun deciding upon your own take on that. But other commentators tend to overlook the humor in this film, from Jarmusch's silly inter-cutting of the revolving locomotive wheels with the outrageous characters on the train; Gary Farmer's fat, Europeanized Indian; Blake's cluelessness about his namesake; and Billy Bob Thornton and Iggy Pop as hilarious savages. Robert Mitchum and John Hurt make noteworthy appearances, and Lance Henriksen even makes a case for the Terminator role that he lost to Arnold.

V for Vendetta is a fairly engaging entertainment which is hugely aided, in America, at least, by the questions it raises about civil liberties vs security. Hugo Weaving does a nice job of overcoming the mask with his voice and body language and a strong supporting cast of fine character actors outweigh a merely adequate performance by Natalie Portman. But the Brothers W let us down with a half-baked screenplay and the more you think about this movie the less good it is. Consider, in particular, V's ability to circumvent an enormous security infrastructure to assassinate top level officials in their homes at will, hijack a government train, acquire and distribute a half million Guy Fawkes masks, and stock his personal museum sanctuary with art treasures. How he does any of these things is seldom shown, and more often than not he simply tells us that he has done them. If you have never thought much about the political issues raised and this film causes you to do so, that's great. But it's far, far from a "work of towering genius." Marvelous explosion at the end, though.