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| Fifth Column |
| The Kucinich Factor |
| 2007-12-11 |
| Roger Simon, Pajamas Media Roger reviews I came to this movie – the tale of a retired military policeman (Tommy Lee Jones) in search of the murderers of his son, who had gone AWOL on return from Iraq - expecting to be put off by its antiwar message. But I was even more put off by the ineptitude of the film itself, especially the screenplay. . . . The whole enterprise was soporific and my mind kept wandering, only to be pulled back intermittently by intense antiwar screeds given, completely out of context, by various characters, as if we were suddenly plunged into a clumsy agitprop flick produced by the cultural ministry of some former communist country (Albania?). The writer-director apparently did not trust his own story to make his point, although, at the end, it is no more than the old chestnut “War is Hell” with a special (and entirely predictable) anti-American military fillip. And, for those still awake… and with IQs under triple digits… who could possibly miss the import of this fillip, [dircetor Paul] Haggis hammers it home with a metaphor more ham-handed than any I can remember in recent cinema. He has the formerly patriotic Jones solemnly raise the American flag upside down over his hometown – the last image of the movie. Although this puerile melodramatic gesture has been commented on in many reviews, few have actually seen it in the theatres. . . . But what fascinates me in this is not the audience disinterest in these turgid antiwar flicks. That was as predictable as the message of the films themselves. What interests me is what happened to the talented Haggis. Where did his skill go? Why did he make – let’s be honest – such an atrocious film out of this material (originally a ‘true story’ article in Playboy which he, apparently loosely, adapted)? Haggis, unlike the DePalma of Redacted, was at the top of his career. So we can’t ascribe this failure to comeback desperation. . . . Perhaps it’s the Kucinich Factor. What does that mean, you may rightly ask? Well, according to Wikipedia, like Sean Penn, Paul Haggis is a supporter of and donor to Dennis Kucinich. Now if I were antiwar - which in the case of Iraq I am not, though I was during Vietnam – I would run from Kucinich like the proverbial plague. The candidate is a slightly lame-brained, show-off narcissist who claims to have seen flying saucers and dances about like a Dervish, cavorting in any manner necessary to attract the attention of television cameras. It’s hard to take him seriously and the public apparently doesn’t. See, also, e.g., Cindy Sheehan. He barely registers in the polls. In fact, I imagine Kucinich hurts the antiwar cause considerably more than he helps it. A man as subtle and intelligent as Haggis must see this. But he evidently doesn’t care. He makes a bigger statement by supporting Kucinich, a statement of a kind of leftist purity. Supporting Kucinich for people like [Sean] Penn and Haggis is more about them than it is about the candidate. So what if the candidate is a loser (who would want Kucinich to be President in real life anyway?)! What counts is that I (capital I in block letters) am for him. I am the true man of the left. . . . As far as I know, Haggis is in no way an out of control personality like Penn. But the upended flag is clearly in itself a similar form of cinematic infantile hyperbole. If the world were as simple-minded as that metaphor it would be simple indeed – like a Dennis Kucinich “no strings” dance. And, as with the Kucinich campaign, the auteur of In The Valley of Elah seems more interested in demonstrating or parading his own views than in inducing others to agree with him. It is a form of showing off (like Kucinich) that does not make for great art. As somber, indeed grim, as In The Valley of Elah is, it is not fundamentally serious. It’s a self-involved game (again, like Dennis Kucinich). No wonder it’s so boring. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #1 See also REALCLEARPOLITICS > TWO PRESIDENTS IN THE WHITE HOUSE; + TOPIX > HILLARY IS STILL STRONG WITH WOMEN BUT STILL HAS A LOT OF WORK TO DO [to win 2008]. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-12-11 23:23 |