Mighty Heartless Compass

The movie-watching continues for us, and this week (amongst others) we saw two movies as different apples and oranges. The first was "A Mighty Heart" starring Angelina Jolie, based on events surrounding the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl in Karachi, Pakistan (on DVD). The other was "The Golden Compass" - the movie based on the first instalment of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy. A dose therefore of reality and hyper-reality.

What follow are fairly spoiler-free reviews... For the attention span challenged, in a nutshell, both rate about 3 stars in my book...

1. A Mighty Heart

This was one of those movies you dread to see; fallsing in the same broad category as say, "United 93"/ "World Trade Center"/ "Salaam Bombay"/ "Ardh-Satya". You dread to see it not because it may be a bad movie, but because it might make you uncomfortable. You fear it will give you a glimpse of a reality you normally view with detachment on the evening news and shake your head at. A reality you would rather not acknowledge.

Ideal movies, for most of us (and especially me!), are about escape and entertainment, with perhaps a dollop or a garnish of a message. Portraying reality is not a job we expect of them. So it was telling that this DVD sat around waiting to be watched for almost ten days after the folks at Netflix and the USPS got it to us. The fault was mine entirely - I am too happy these days to leave my comfort zone.

That said, the movie wasn't that uncomfortable to see at all! Which I'm not sure is a good thing.

Based on events that ended in tragedy, the film-makers have taken the effort to not be despondent, and have avoided the 'shock and awe' strategy in the visuals, sound, and look of the film. That makes this movie a passable semi-documentary on the circumstances surrounding and investigation into the kidnapping.

Unfortunately, it stops there.

While serving as a decently gripping investigation piece, I felt the movie had surprisingly little to say. The makers were obviously walking a tight-rope between journalism and commentary, and that diluted the content. There are some moments of good commentary in the film, but they don't come together as a skein or a tapestry. The action scenes are well shot, but only add to the confusion - is the movie trying to be a thriller, or a reflective (and moody) piece?

The moments/ elements that came across well to me include:

• A well meaning character from the WSJ who bumbles and fusses over how to best care for Mariane


• The meeting with the Pakistani Minister of the Interior (?), which says so much in so little time.


• The climactic scene of the movie where Mariane breaks down.


• The interview at the very end where Mariane is confronted with an insensitive question.

A motif that the director uses often, which I didn't get/ appreciate was that of the child that shows up in many scenes/ frames (the child of the servants attending to the house Mariane lives in). I didn't get it - maybe it was a motif more effective on the Western viewer, who would not be used to seeing such a presence, but if it was in fact saying anything about anything - well, ok!

Angelina Jolie plays the central character of Mariane Pearl with gusto - but is defeated by the fact that she cannot do things - a) speak in a convincing French accent, and b) stop being Angelina Jolie. She shines in some scenes but is mostly about par for the course. Similarly competent but performing well below stellar are Irfan Khan as the chief of the Pakistan CID, and the lady that plays Asra Nomani, the Indian journalist.

All in all, this is a movie that started out trying to be many things - and ended up being a valiant attempt at a few of them.

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2. The Golden Compass

I was excited, hyped to see this movie. I followed its making, and was waiting for it for several months.

It seemed to have all the ingredients for a really good stew; Stellar source material - His Dark Materials is a trilogy I adore for being audacious and imaginitive. They roped in talent of the highest order - Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman, Christopher Lee, Ian McKellen (the voice of the bear), and a (perfectly cast) Sam Elliott as Lee Scoresby. The movie had a good 'home' in New Line - the folks that made the LOTR movies. Budget wasn't a problem - as was evidenced by the high quality of art direction and special effects.

And yet I was extremely disappointed to see the final product. That (in my opinion) is because of two cardinal errors on the part of the director, Paul Weitz, and the author Philip Pullman, who was involved with the production.

The first was the decision to stick to a literal depiction of the book - only not the important parts (I'll explain this!). The decision made the movie a candidate for the "Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone" Award - a movie that mostly stuck to the source but is incapable of satisfying viewers new to the story as a movie because it lacks... soul. Cohesion. Qwan. Whatever.

The cardinal rule for movie adaptations from books is to capture the essence of the tale, at the cost of plot details. Here I thought they did the bang opposite. Nearly every detail, every character, every plot twist made it to the movie in some shape or form (excluding the last three chapters.

That made the movie feel like a badly paced/ hastily written role playing video game (RPG)... It even stuck to the classic RPG formula: Start adventure as a naive unknowing character, collect companions/ knowledge, complete some side quests, and the main quest has a 'cliffhanger' ending, promising a sequel.

Which brings us to the second big problem. Excuse the crudity - this movie lacked the balls to stick to the source material - in spirit.

The last three chapters in the book were omitted. I hear they were filmed, but Paul Weitz (the director) decided to include them in the next movie (The Subtle Knife). Pullman himself seems to have approved of the idea. The trouble is, without that ending, this is just another fantasy movie... and Lord Asriel remains just another tediously cliched father figure!

That wouldn't be as big a problem if the movie hadn't already been castrated by the god-fearing-people-fearing-studio-executivess in Hollywood. Not only did they conveniently skip the end when we find out what Asriel's real gambit is... They also removed from the story all the semi-explicit allusions to the Church and to God and the Original Sin myth which make the book so nice and blasphemous!

To take a trilogy that is first and foremost a spin on the basis of Christianity and Catholicism and to make it a red-America friendly bowl of gruel is beyond criminal - it is just plain sad!

Ah well... I would hope this movie doesn't turn off potential readers of the trilogy. It does have a few redeeming moments - the conclusion of the polar bear fight for instance is absolutely jaw-dropping (ok... that must be one of the most over-used puns in the blogosphere this week), and all in all I would've liked it as an average flick if I had no idea what the source material was about.

Go watch it, if you haven't the patience to go read it (and reading is preferable by a factor of 10).

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To conclude, a quick note to say I am in the process of drafting a "My Year In Movies" post for the year 2007, just as I had done last year. May also update my Movie Database soon...

Turning into quite a movie blog innit? :)