August 3, 2005

I've found myself hedging on writing about The Constant Gardner. And I think the reason is that the movie transcends words.

When City of God arrived, it was a revelation. Set in the ghetto outside of Rio, the film wasn't shy about the grim realities of the mean, often unpaved streets. But it was also as glib and filled with giddiness as the coolest of Peckinpah or Tarantino films. Fernando Meirelles worked with children and adult non-actors. He used commercial techniques like freeze frames, bullet-time and instant replay to tell the story.

It seemed to be a work of genius from a director making his American debut at 47, mature, assured, and very, very powerful. But what would come next?

Meirelles was offered films at virtually every studio in town. He didn't want to make a "Hollywood" movie, but he did want to work with established actors and he was anxious to use some of the improvisational techniques that had worked so well in City of God.

Eventually, he came upon The Constant Gardener… and I'll have to tell you more about how that all came together after I see Meirelles and chat with him about it in a week or two.

The movie…

The Constant Gardner is two movies. It is a mystery/thriller, set in Kenya. It is also a powerful love story. And the genius of Meirelles, now confirmed beyond doubt, is that he blends the two stories, he blends time, he blends the weight with which we carry our love… our notions of truth…. both our guilt and our sympathy over the poverty and desperations of others… and the dignity of people we rarely see on film into a artistic masterpiece. It isn't hard to pull apart all the pieces, but very view directors have ever had the skill and vision to bring it all together with such skill.

(As much as I admire Million Dollar Baby, its simplicity leaves it in black and white - Meirelles works in unlimited colors.)

Most of the movie is told in flashback, opening with the death of Tessa Qualyle (Rachel Weisz). Why was she on the road in the middle of nowhere with a black driver, not the man that she was traveling with (who is missing). And is her death anything more than an accident?

Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) is left to answer these questions for himself. How did he and Tessa come to this place? Did his wife really love him? Is his life as a diplomat the sham that Tessa always made him feel it was? Why did she have secrets from him? And why didn't he ask more questions… demand more answers? And so, the journey begins.

And Meirelles, the painter, paints. And every stroke has beauty and meaning. Unlike City of God, there aren't specific moments that I feel myself pointing to as "the memorable moments." It is the blending that is so magical.

Ralph Fiennes may have delivered his career best work here, in no small part because it is his most minimalist performance. For him, this is a coming of age movie.

Rachel Weisz is pretty amazing here… she is the earth and the truth and the fearlessness… she is passion… and she is fierce without ever being screechy. As the film is so much in flashback, our perspective might be a little skewed by how others see her. But that is the magic of how we see and perceive others in our lives, no?

Hubert Kounde, Gerald McSorley, Pete Postlethwaite, Daniel Harford, Richard McCabe and particularly Donald Sumpter are all wonderful in small roles in the film. You may recognize half the names on this list, but after seeing the film, you will remember them all forever.

Danny Huston gets his best role since Ivansxtc and delivers another cuckold of sorts, but one who moves like a cat, always saving his own skin.

And Bill Nighy plays a well-sized cameo in the film as a high government official. The reason I've broken him out, other than that you can't take your eyes off of him when he is on screen - any screen - is that on my second viewing of the film, I started thinking about the plot and found myself thinking about a film Nighy stars in, now on HBO, called The Girl in the Café. If it is not a ripoff of this story, the idea floating in the U.K. air as Meirelles moved forward with this project, it is close in certain keys ways. Girl in the Café starts Nighy as a government official who is a few steps from the top, but is heading to the G8 Summit. He meets a girl in a café, played by Kelly Macdonald, who he falls for and invites to accompany him to the G8. But that film, which was pleasant enough, had a tendency to lecture, which The Constant Gardener never quite does. It always has a high horse nearby, but every time it gets ready to ride it, Meirelles shifts the tone.

Of course, adapting screenwriter Jeffrey Caine deserves a lot of credit for this film. He (and LeCarre) delivered the blueprint. But Meirelles makes the leap as a director from what could have been quality house painting and fine art.

Perhaps it is because Fernando trusts the audience in a way few directors do these days. Guys like Jarmusch and Haynes and von Trier and even Clint Eastwood bring you into their view of the world and you are forced to either accept the experience or to not. Directors like Ridley Scott and Spielberg and Zemeckis and even Paul Greengrass are great at creating a world that is familiar to you and then creating singular events inside of your reality. Merielles is working somewhere else, much as Julian Schnabel has, coming to film from the art world, but at a much higher level.

Even a novelist, who engages your imagination to connect with his or her words, is still stuck with too much narrative for the reader to imagine the visions that Meirelles delivers.

Best of all, most viewers will not think about it all that much… they will just feel it. So it works, I think, to all kinds of movie lovers. The thriller works, the mystery unravels, the love story is devastating. .

With Meirelles working here and Cronenberg delivering his best film this year and another young breakthrough director about to deliver his first comic/dramatic masterpiece… 2005 is making a turn towards greatness indeed. Let's all just pray that the big studio product that aspires to greatness achieves it as well.

E-ME.