Two
More from TIFF: Of Private Wars and Green Books
A Private War (UK/U.S.)
After helming two masterful
documentaries (2015’s Oscar-nominated Cartel
Land and 2017’s Emmy-nominated City
of Ghosts), director Matthew Heineman approaches this dramatic retelling of
the life and death of intrepid American war correspondent Marie Colvin with a
similarly compelling passion that serves its subject well. Rosamund Pike is
extraordinary in the role of Colvin who wrote dispatches for the London Sunday Times from the world’s worst
conflict zones—Sri Lanka (in 2001 where she lost an eye), Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya
(the last Western journalist to interview Gaddafi), Syria. She became known for wearing a black eye
patch (and a fashionista La Perla bra).
The film doesn’t gloss over the demons of PTSD and a stormy personal
life in which she chain smoked and drank to excess. But it connects most
strongly when she is face to face with the victims of war’s evils, determined
to tell the truth of these human stories. As she tells her boss: “I see it so
you don’t have to.”
The
movie’s timeline leads towards Colvin’s final fatal moments in the besieged shattered
Syrian city of Homs. On these dangerous
assignments she was accompanied by ace photographer Paul Conroy (Jamie Dornan
is a much more worthy role than as the hunk in the worthless “Fifty Shades”
franchise). Colvin was driven to take
great risks to get the story. We hear
the powerful interview she gave to CNN on February 22, 2012 before being killed
in a bomb blast as rebel-held Homs was being relentlessly pounded by the Assad
dictatorship. Her witness gave the lie to claims that only “terrorists” were
being targeted. Observing that over a
half million Syrians have been killed since her death, this film is a timely tribute
to fearless frontline journalism telling truth to power.
Green
Book (U.S. https://www.greenbookfilm.com/)
Director Peter Farrelly, of the Farrelly
Brothers associated with lowbrow comedies, is solo at the helm here tackling a
more serious subject—America’s racial and
class divides—through an unusual true story of the mixed-race Don Shirley
trio touring the deep South in 1962. Dr.
Don, a classically-trained pianist living in solitary splendor above Carnegie
Hall, needs a driver with muscle to be his chauffeur on the tour. He also happens to be a tall elegant
multilingual Black man of refined tastes who would prefer playing Chopin to
jazz. (The other two members of the trio, white, Russian-speakers, travel in a
separate car.) The driver he ends up
hiring, Frank Vallelonga, who goes by “Tony Lip”, is a blunt Italian-American
family man of unrefined tastes, a bouncer at the Copacabana nightclub who needs
the good money of this 2-month gig while that joint is closed for renovations. So
begins a very odd-couple roadtrip that evolves from fractious to unlikely
friendship. (The title comes from a “Green Book” guide for Negro motorists
advising where “coloreds” can stay and be served.)
What’s
best about the movie, which won the Toronto film festival’s “People’s Choice
Award”, regarded as an Oscar harbinger, are the terrific performances of Mahershala
Ali (Oscar winner for Moonlight) as
Dr. Don and Viggo Mortensen as Tony. Don
is subjected to racist indignities the deeper south they go, even from wealthy
hosts. Several times Tony comes to his rescue from threats and abuse. But Tony
has a point when in a moment of exasperation he claims to be “blacker”. Because
he’s the one opening doors for the boss and taking orders; in New York he’s the
lower-class proletarian, the doctor the high-class aristocrat.
Tony
has grown up with causal racial attitudes but he’s fundamentally a good-hearted
guy. And the movie comes to a heartwarming conclusion on a snowy Christmas eve
that leaves a crowd-pleasing effect. Still
over half a century later one has to wonder—about class inequalities that are
greater and the racist attitudes in Trumpland that, albeit less overt and more
insidious, are far from being overcome.
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