April 16, 2006

Syriana, pollyanna, somebody give me a banana

We watched "Syriana" yesterday and I have to ask, what’s all the big fuss about this movie? :p A lot of people seem to think that this is a brilliant movie and a telling tale of our times or something. For me, a movie has to be first entertaining and this was not an entertaining movie at all. In fact, quite the opposite. This was a movie that was totally devoid of life. In fact, it would even put a dead man to sleep :p

The story, what there is of it, just meanders along trying to make a whole lot of points but not really making anything clear. There are so many little things happening which apparently have nothing to do with the main storyline. It looks as if all these little vignettes of life are supposed to make some sort of statement but all they end up doing really is to confuse you and to leave you scratching your head going "what the heck?" What was it all about all the Pakistani guys in the movie living in whatever Gulf state the story was supposed to take place in? They apparently are laid off work and their visas expire but they have some sort of colony of their own and they plan to bring their wives/mothers over? Is that even legally possible? Where I’ve worked in the Middle East, when your work visa was cancelled, you were shipped home. If you decided to stay back illegally, you had to dodge the law all the time.

And what was the point of the police beating up the guy in line for speaking while in line? Is that supposed to make some statement about the oppressive regime? We still live in the same world where Rodney King was beaten up by police officers after a traffic stop. So what exactly is the point there? That brutality is everywhere? That when we humans get a little bit of power, it seems to just go to our heads stronger than the strongest intoxicant?

The problem to me was that the movie makers appeared to be trying to send out some sort of a message instead of simply telling a story. Sure a story has a message of its own. But when you try to twist a story to tell your message instead of letting the message come out naturally from the flow of the story, it just goes nowhere. At least, that’s how I feel 🙂 I came out of the movie wandering whether the movie was supposed to be the voice of the left or the voice of the right? When we as humans can’t see straight does it really matter who is right or what is left anyway?

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