SYRIANA: BLACK GOLD, BLACK HEARTS

At this year’s 78th Annual Academy Awards, George Clooney won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Bob Barnes, in first-time director Stephen Gaghan’s film "Syriana." This political thriller has been playing in theatres consistently since late 2005. It appears to have garnered more press prior to and during its release than any recent film, except maybe "King Kong." The reason could be that "Syriana" talks about stuff we all talk about: the US’s passion for and determination to control Middle East oil by any means necessary. In one publication alone, "Syriana" has been listed along with "Good Night, and Good Luck," Nicholas Cage’s "Lord of War," Albert Brook’s "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World," as "new movies [that] take aim at recently taboo topics." I would include "The Constant Gardner,"Jarhead," and "Paradise Now." Why the spate of such films now? There are several theories but the simple fact is that statistics show that these films make money. "Good Night and Good Luck," also still playing in major houses, cost seven million dollars to make. It has grossed more than $16 million and counting.

"Syriana" is a bitter, pessimistic, complex, yet thoroughly engaging film containing many plots and subplots, which makes it hard to figure out who’s doing what to whom and why. We know that Clooney’s Barnes, a blobby, disheveled, worn-out CIA spy, whom the agency wants to dump, believes he is still effective. Matt Damon plays hotshot energy analyst, Brian Woodman, who befriends a moderate Arabian prince (Alexander Siddig). Christopher Plummer is a Big Oil attorney who will not deign to shake the hand of a corporate lawyer (Jeffrey Wright) when they first meet at a posh, private club; why, we ask, because he’s black? Or because he’s an underling? Also, Chris Cooper is spot-on as a Texas oil baron.

Director Stephen Gaghan, who also wrote the screenplay for the Hollywood’s "Traffic," used the technique of cutting away from one evolving scene to another before we could get a handle on its meaning. It doesn’t help that the film leaps from Beirut, Kazakhstan, Geneva, back to the US to CIA’s Langley headquarters, and Houston, home of oil company honchos.

Out of at least a dozen characters, the movie basically focuses on Clooney’s Barnes and Damon’s Woodman, whom Gaghan had filled out so that we care about them. We witness Clooney’s downfall vs. Damon’s rise due to an unfortunate accident at the Prince’s family party that resulted in the death of Damon’s young son, which will gain him tons of money and a lucrative contract with a Middle Eastern oil company. "It’s like having an ATM on our front lawn!" he exclaims to his wife, played by Amanda Peet, who conveys her increasing disgust at her husband’s deals with few words and lots of body language. Contrasted with the Arab Emir and sons and Americans luxuriating in their lavish, desert digs, Gaghan shows us foreign oil field workers living in filth in the middle of the desert, stacked in hutches like rabbits inside double-wide trailers. One young Pakistani loses his job and is enticed by an Egyptian Imam into entering a madrasa where he’s given clean white clothing and food, along with radical Islamic teachings. We know where this is headed; the outcome is tragic.

"Syriana" is based on ex-CIA agent Robert Baer’s book, "See No Evil." The name, Syriana, is a compilation of the names of Middle Eastern countries, mainly Iran and Syria cooked up by highly placed US government officials with Imperial designs on the Middle East. Gaghan had traveled with Baer, who speaks Arabic, Farsi, and French, to the Arabian countries prior to filming for insights and background, as well as to work with Baer on the screenplay. In a post-screening Q & A, Gaghan had said that the red states love "Syriana." The movie bears this out. In once scene, a couple of American corporate officials, flying over the desert, talk about what they’ll gain from the "war" and insurgent attacks, so want to keep democracy out of Iraq. Baer wrote"“See No Evil" as non-fiction, yet a disclaimer appears at the end of "Syriana" stating that the film is purely fictional.

Some critics have complained that Gaghan overly concentrated on underling major characters: Matt Damon, Clooney, Jeffrey Wright, rather than on Plummer and Cooper, the corporate leaders, government officials, and the head of the CIA. These critics say that the story then would have been much clearer and he could have given audiences a more satisfying resolution. Still, "Syriana" will be seen neither by the Big Guns in government nor corporate Fat Cats. It is being seen by us - - little people; we who literally have no say against those who claim the
right to “remake any part of the world to suit our own purpose.” There are no heroes in "Syriana," no mere man or woman who will save the day, yet an ineffectual man, Barnes, believes he can and even tries, but his kind is passé, and no one listens.

This review is an adaptation from an earlier version published elsewhere.

"Syriana" is now playing in San Francisco at the Metreon, the Metro, and the 4 Star. Check listings for other Bay Area Theatres.

FILMS AND SIGMUND FREUD
Films influenced by the works of Sigmund Freud will be shown at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco on Tuesday evenings at 7 PM, beginning March 21, with the 1926 German Expressionist "Secrets of A Soul." Coming up April 4, Gregory Peck in Hitchcock’s 1945 "Spellbound;" May 9, "The Seven Percent Solution" with Alan Arkin as Freud and Nicol Williamson as Sherlock Holmes. Vanessa Redgrave, Robert Duvall, Joel Grey, and Laurence Olivier round out the cast.

"CENTURY OF THE SELF"
Mondays, May 1 and May 8 the JCCSF will feature the BBC two-part documentary (two hours each evening), "Century of the Self" which "examines the profound impact of Freud’s ideas of the self on 20th century consumer and political culture." The documentary had been shown in an extended run at San Francisco’s Roxie Theatre last year.

All screenings are FREE, reservations required: 415-292-1233.