Tell me something I don't know

[sun_set_bravely]

So, we saw Syriana last night. And I was So. Bored. and. Unengaged. It was like watching a news report from a liberal source. And, you know, I usually like liberal sources.

But this movie was so...dire, and VERY stinky of guilt (namely the "white man's burden" variety: Oh! Look how BAD the Western powers are! Look how corrupted and soulless they are! Look how they victimize the poor brown people! Shame on us!) I left feeling like rich men (of all races) have been and will always be rich and powerful, and there's nothing I can do about it. The web is too thick, the players too powerful, etc., etc., life is dim, horrible, and we are all powerless to change it. Well, fuck you too.

It taught me nothing that I didn't already know or suspect. I couldn't keep the characters straight, I didn't know why I should care about any of them (except the young Pakistani men who couldn't find jobs), and so it made very little difference when any of them were threatened, tortured, or killed. In that way, it was worse than watching the news--I usually feel compassion for the people I see reported on the news.

Maybe I'm an optimist, or you might want to call me naive, but I want to hear and see and read stories that make me feel engaged, empowered, like I can make a difference, even if I'm American and therefore the beneficiary of oppression around the world. I don't want to remain ignorant about the world's problems; that's not what I'm talking about. But I also don't want to be told that there's nothing I can do to break the cycle, even in small ways.

I want to hear stories that leave me with hope, with a dream of how good the world could be, instead of how bad the world is. I want to see the magical ways that people treat each other in the middle of all this suffering. I know there is evil. I know there is greedy power. This is the human paradox. So give me a reason to keep struggling toward goodness and peace.

~ ~ ~

Did anyone else see this movie? Can you offer a different view? I'd love to hear it.

Comments

[rojagato.livejournal.com]

I want to hear stories that leave me with hope, with a dream of how good the world could be, instead of how bad the world is.

I just want to watch good movies.

I'm not sure that my view of Syriana (http://rojagato.livejournal.com/188909.html) is that much different from yours in the end, but I think I came to mine by a different path.

[sun-set-bravely.livejournal.com]

Very good point, which I really should have included as my first objection, even before all of the subject matter. If this movie had been good (ie. lucid, well-paced, etc.), I might have been more open to their point. But man, what a mess!

[(Anonymous)]

I did not see the movie, but I agree with you on the sentiment.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I did not see the movie,but agree with you on the sentiment.

[gmoneyjonesiii.livejournal.com]

Syriana is somewhere near dead last on the list of critically noted movies I need to see before I consider myself prepared for the Oscars this year, due mainly to the warnings I've read in every review citing its excessive density of dialogue and subject matter. I'm all for talky movies, I'm all for sprawling current-events movies (I own and enjoy Traffic), but a good film has to learn to balance out the key make-it-break-it areas (as I see 'em) of script, direction, and editing. Stephen Gaghan is a writer, first and foremost, and it sounds to me from everything I've read that everything in the movie got skewed in that direction, which may look great or even Important on the page, but plays out pretty dull and lethargic on screen.

Regarding your bigger point: I do feel that movies, at their best, can make us optimistic, can give us hope, can push us to get personally involved in the subject at hand. The best documentaries I've seen fall into this category. But I think it can be just as vital to identify humanity's failings, to do it accurately and with emotional honesty, and to bring it to the screen in a compelling manner, in order to prove "good" as art. Requiem For A Dream was as bleak a picture as I've seen of the evils and foibles of humanity, and yet it inspired me to "keep struggling toward goodness and peace", as you say, if for no other reason than to keep me away from any addiction that gripping and prevent the ones I love from doing the same. Referencing something more recent, there was only a lot of mental and emotional pain to be found in every relationship in Brokeback Mountain, and no real "solution" I could find to the dilemma there, but it really boosted my compassion and empathy, which I feel is the greatest thing movies can do.

Those are both a bit different from Syriana's subject matter, to be sure. My point is that a film's outlook need not be optimistic in order to be engaging. To paint greed or arrogance or hatred or whatever as closely as possible to the real thing sometimes is an answer, if only to instruct us to repaint our own lives in a different color. Now, it doesn't have to do it in a dry or didactic way, which may be Syriana's biggest sin here. But I don't think I movie is neccessarily bad just because it ends on a sour note, or has a sour symphony to play throughout, so to speak. It's gotta be sincere and daring, to borrow from Mark Romanek and the late Stanley Kubrick (NOT my favorite director, but a good film philosopher).

Did all that come across as incredibly self-righteous? Hey, Matt, I have an idea: why don't you go see the movie. Well, I'm told Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room is a better picture about modern corruption anyway, plus it's out on DVD now, so.

another movie

[(Anonymous)]

Finding Laughter in the Muslim World is an excellent movie that should give you that hope your looking for...I guess. That movie is excellent. I did see Syriana and I feel better now that I am not the only one with problems following the characters.