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Aug. 26, 2005
Africa, seen in close-up
Movie mixes greed and compassionate character.
KATHARINE HAMER EDITOR
Novelist John Le Carré is perhaps best-known for a series
of thrillers set during the Cold War. For The Constant Gardener,
published in 2001, he drew on a different sort of political intrigue:
the machinations of big business, in the form of multinational pharmaceutical
companies. The book has now been turned into a powerful film, starring
Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes and directed by City of God’s
Fernando Mireilles.
Opening in theatres Aug. 31, the romantic thriller tells the story
of a quiet British diplomat, Justin Quayle (Fiennes), and his impassioned
activist wife Tessa (Weisz), who is found brutally murdered in a
remote part of Kenya during the film’s opening scenes. Justin
refuses to believe that his wife was killed by her companion, Dr.
Arnold Bluhm (Hubert Koundé) – and launches a fevered
transcontinental search for the truth about Tessa’s death and
what she tried to accomplish during her short life. What he uncovers
is a conspiracy far greater than he could possibly have imagined,
involving some of his closest colleagues. Among them are British
High Commission lackey Sandy Woodrow (Danny Huston), a man divided
by genuine feeling for his friends and an overweening desire for
luxury and a chance to climb the greasy pole.
The choice of Mireilles as director was an inspired one. His cinematic
style is both understated and vivid. With long-time collaborator
César Charlone behind the camera, he has produced a feature
that deliberately contrasts the cool, rainy greys and greens of
Europe and the dusty red deserts of East Africa. There are scenes
shot at vertiginous angles; others filled with chaos and sound;
still others where the silence is such that the audience can almost
hear itself breathe. Much of the filming was done using locals as
extras and with natural sound and light.
“It felt like reportage,” said Weisz, of the process,
“or like guerrilla filmmaking.”
There is a sense of omen throughout the film – the source of
which is kept well-hidden as the drama unfolds.
“I thought you knew everything,” Weisz’s character
says to a British secret agent, trying to glean information. “Only
God knows everything,” the agent retorts, “and he works
for Mossad.”
The storyline – which involves the testing of unpredictable
drugs on an unsuspecting and desperately poor African populace –
will likely cause indignation and head-nodding among anti-globalization
activists and conspiracy theorists. It’s also enormously timely,
given the regular media coverage of attempts to procure generic,
low-cost drugs for Third World countries laboring under staggering
infection rates for AIDS, tuberculosis and other horrific diseases.
And yet this is a love story as much as anything else – and
its leading players are entirely believable in their portrayal of
passion. Fiennes – as in many of his previous movies, including
The English Patient and The End of the Affair, mines
a pained, rather stilted Englishman to consummate effect. As Justin,
his response to the suggestion that his wife was having an affair
is to crush cactus leaves slowly between his fingers. As Tessa,
Weisz, in contrast, lights up the screen with a ferocity and dogged
dedication to her mission – demanding that her husband drive
a local family 40 kilometres home even as she herself is recovering
from a hospital stay. To Tessa, it’s worth it even to help
one person.
It is only after Tessa’s death that Justin begins to question
his own role in the universe – and in the organization he so
loyally serves. He has been not only a devoted fosterer of plant
life, but a “constant gardener” in his unwavering sense
of duty.
There is a symmetry and a righteousness in the film’s outcome
– one that is achieved with well-crafted subtlety and leaves
viewers in contemplation long after the lights have gone up. Justin
Quayle comes to understand fully his wife’s seemingly overidealized
stance – and in the process, loses the ability to remain a
mere bystander.
As Maimonides said, “He who saves one life is as if he saved
an entire world.”
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