Paul Greengrass, born in Surrey, England, is an unlikely
recorder of the mishaps of the American government over the
course of the last ten years or so. Yet, his films tend to
paint grim pictures of the overarching stupidity and
claustrophobic authority of those in higher power unmatched
by any natural-born American working today. His tact? To
roll the complicated machinations around a singular figure,
a Jason Bourne, or a Ben Sliney, to draw us in, give us a
comfortable connection, while he exactingly and delicately
pokes minute holes in our preconceived notions.
Review - Green Zone
In Green Zone Matt Damon plays Miller, a soldier who
wants only to "save lives" but is forced in to a bigger game
when he starts questioning America's WMD sources in the
early days of the Iraq War. We can relate to Miller, Damon
plays him as a friendly intelligent sort of Midwestern
fellow, a good soldier who follows orders but values truth
over anything else.
He's
a bulldog with a soft-side. An unlikely soldier with the
type of tunnel vision any good soldier needs, but one who's
able to turn his focus when needed.
What this film wants to be is the story of a man caught up
in the system. A good man who wants to save lives and
expose the truth, but is thrust in to an almost Kafka-esque
maze of bureaucracy. To a certain degree it is just that,
Damon's Miller is a guided truth-seeking missile, aimed at
what he thinks are the answers but unable to understand the
full picture. Greengrass paints well with Miller
desperately searching for General Al Rawi (Said Faraj), a
higher-up Ba'athist, with only a series of half-truths as
his guide, the slippery tentacles of the U.S. government and
the C.I.A. quickly closing in. It's tense throughout
(especially with Barry Ackroyd's shaky cameras letting us
feel each and every bomb blast), and I at least, genuinely
hoped, against all odds, that Miller would expose the truth
and prevent a future I've already lived through.
Trouble is, telling the entire scope of the U.S. involvement
in Iraq, all the lies and half-truths, wouldn't be easy with
a tangled web of narratives, let alone a singular
character's too-brief arc. With too much juggle, Greengrass
is forced, mostly near the finale of the film, in to
bolstering his small focus with high-octane fire-fights and
broader sweeps of the allegory brush. When the film pulls
back from Miller and his quest, it just isn't as strong, the
wider freedom giving way to a less assured, more loosely
drawn series of political stereotypes.
Noah Sanders is the blog/news editor at Light In The
Attic and a contributor at Sound On The Sound and
the KEXP blog. He also has his own
Criterion-based film site, Criterion Quest.
If you'd like to contact Noah in regards to his
writings here at Side One: Track One then please do
so
here.
- Noah Sanders
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