Friday, March 31, 2006

Syrianna: a political comment on contemporary American reality


Syriana is a political thriller about things we strongly suspect. For the Americans this film can be a shock but for Europeans the inter-relations of politics and companies that handle petrol distribution is an old secret. Three different stories are narrated. From one hand, we follow the story of an agent, an assassinator- to be exact- of the United States. On the other hand there is a member of an important petrol company who tries to negotiate a big deal with an Arab Prince about the petrol production of his country. The third story is about a lawyer who is investigating in order to find out if a small company managed to close a deal through unjust means. All theses stories collide at the end of the film with the assassination of the enlighten Arab Prince by the USA Government. Corruption is presented in every level. The government abandons its assassinator when he is exposed. The lawyer covers up the foul playing he encounters. Big companies manage to ensure who will ascend next to the Arabian throne. In this chaos Americans act against Americans and nobody knows what the others do. In the end the situation is not beneficial even for the American state.
The story is quite complex and the spectator cant follow the thread of the three stories easily. In the better part of the film he tries to orientate and find out in which country he is and what the political situation the film describes is. The film is fictional but remains so close to reality that has a documentary ring to it. You have the strong feeling that the things it describes have actually happened.
In the end Syriana is a clever political comment which has nothing new to offer to the European audience. However, it might be an insight of Americans foreign politics for the country's audience. As a film, though, it lacks coherence, clarity and inner meaning. The great acting form Clooney and the intelligent subject manage just to save the movie and place in meritocracy.

3 comments:

Panagiotis Chatzigiannis said...

"fictional but remains so close to reality that has a documentary" have a look to this guy portfolio http://www.yanniskontos.com/ .
I personally find it very difficult to keep in my mind images like these (and those on the film).
Also I liked the way the film displays the Islamic liberation organizations, at list it was more convincing than Mr.Spielberg attempt http://helencomments.blogspot.com/2006/02/munich-keep-spielberg-away-from.html.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.