SYRIANA: A MODEL OF DYSTOPIA

By
Erica Hector Vital
Red Rock Review
ericavital@cox.net
ericav@theflickchicks.com

Utopia is the idea of a simple society structured around some happy truth. The idea of such a world is built on the fantasy of a democratic structure that fosters freedom, economic parity, peace, and most of all, political and social transparency. Dystopia is the literal opposite of such a happy place and for moviegoers who venture into the provocative, multi-charactered and multi-tiered world of screenwriter/director Stephen Gaghan's SYRIANA, we are brought to the edge of our seats and face to face with the realization that we are a lot closer to the idea of a less than transparent, dangerous and complexly woven dystopia than we know.

Gaghan and producer Steven Soderbergh have shocked us out of our own private utopias once before with the Academy Award winning film TRAFFIC (2000) which delved into the murky waters of the U.S./Mexican drug wars and earned Benicio Del Torro an Oscar for best supporting actor. As in TRAFFIC, Gaghan and Soderbergh's newest opus crisscrosses geographic, ethnic, and socio-political boundaries, taking us in and out of the private lives of central characters and onto the larger world stage. Gaghan smuggles the camera over international lines, behind the closed doors of good-ole' boy networks, back and forth between languages, visions, and personal and political tragedies. Gaghan's ability to fold world events into moments of clarity, force, and connection is stunningly captured in a seemingly innocent scene between a Pakistani teenager who is being woed by extremists to become yet another human weapon of mass destruction and a buddy talking in the grape arbors of an oil-bearing nation. After passionate discussions of the Koran and having watched the latest video messages of suicide bombers who have gone before them, these two teens, destined for horror, wax philosophic about the movie Spiderman. When one teen mistakenly refers to the true identity of the superhero as Clark Kent, the other kid, the most sincere and deadly serious about his national identity and his mission, delivers the salvo, "The spider is a symbol of mankind's sin," and can also name the sinner, "Peter Parker," thereby naming and condemning the sinful nation to which the idea of the web and the Spiderman belong. The subtitled dialogue of such moments is delivered in an arresting mix of Arabic and Farsi that clicks along easily and manages to establish a surprising intimacy in the midst of the exotic and unfamiliar.

George Clooney, his wonderfully dark features burdened by the fifteen pounds he piled on for the role of rogue CIA agent Bob Barnes, is one of many who can talk the talk, as well as walk the walk in SYRIANA. When he curses a formidable blue-eyed Egyptian in Farsi, he does so with an international operative's assurance that the Egyptian would not speak the Persian language but Arabic. At first glance Bob is Everyman. The weight Clooney forced on his GQ frame is a reflection not only of the Ugly American, overfed and over-coddled, but of the sleeping giant of American policy, the lethality hidden beneath the congenial fat of a nation. Bob has killed. His colleagues allude to secret missions in Beirut in '82. They speak of Bob as if speaking of a predatory animal. "Rumors of Bob, but no Bob," says one colleague who will eventually betray him. Though he is a force to be reckoned with, fearless and quite capable of backing up the hype which surrounds him, Clooney's Bob is essentially a trained animal whose actions are dictated by Washington higher-ups who may throw a bone or withhold it according to how high they wish Bob to jump. As an instrument of the CIA Bob is informed of his purpose, his very existence, on a need to know basis and as the film opens on a Bob mission gone wrong, Bob nobly wants answers but is warned not to pursue them or the bad guys.

Even as the powers-that-be are working to shrink Bob Barnes' sphere of influence, those same powers are expanding access and the potential for gratis to Washington policy lawyer Bennett Holiday rendered with exquisite cool by Jeffrey Wright of Julian Schnabel's BASQUIAT and Jim Jarmusch's BROKEN FLOWERS.

As a part of the legal firm sent in to oversee the potential merger of two of the largest oil companies in the world, Wright's Bennett Holiday is not much more than a lapdog, "One of the sheep who thinks he's a lion." But as Christopher Plummer as the powerful Dean Whiting, takes measure of Bennett Holiday's cool, he is certain that the lawyer just might be, " the lion everyone thinks is a sheep."

Amanda Peet as Julie Woodman is more human and invests more in the this role than in previous efforts as a socially conscious mother of two and wife of Matt Damon's Brian Woodman. Damon is brought out of the comic book realm of stone features and one-note delivery in a performance that is impassioned and mature as a loving father whose work in the world of international finance brings the violence and the terror of the outside world a little closer to home than he'd expected. His response to the tragedy that befalls his family is believable. In many ways it is the typical response of the ambitious American ever forging forward.

SYRIANA is dizzying in its scope. It is an interactive film in which audiences have no choice but to engage. Stunning revelations lie within a word, a glance, a name dropped, a connection made. You must be present, listen, respond and think through each moment. Gaghan's eye as a director is deceptive, seeming to rely less on grand cinematic statement and more on the simplicity and unfolding truth of documentary. Yet there are cinematic sweeps of grandeur in the homes and palaces of Arab oil-rich oligarchies, and in the sudden and skillfully handled scenes of violence. If Gaghan's characterizations are a scorecard of nationalities, accents and motives, his list of actors is as richly layered. Christopher Plummer as Dean Whiting is chilling, the incomparable Chris Cooper as Jimmy Pope, a oil executive with nothing to lose, British hottie Mark Strong as Mussawi, Alexandar Siddiq as the charismatic Prince Nasir, and William Hurt putting his second surprise appearance in a thriller this year.

The rich and interconnected weaving of names, dates, datelines, and intrigue is Gaghan and Soderbergh's vision of a society compromised by duplicity, a dystopia that can be defined by a world weary Muslim teen's critique of Spiderman. Gaghan, and writer Robert Bauer from whose book See No Evil much of Syriana is based, makes it clear that from Washington to Tehran, Kurkistan to Crawford,Texas we are all caught in the web.