Change Your Image
fhelisch
Reviews
Le bureau des légendes (2015)
Superb Experience
I don't usually give 10's for anything, and I don't think this TV series is perfect either. However, I feel that this is the best TV series I have ever seen, so a 10 it is.
The series strikes a nice balance between a low key approach to the genre that emphasizes realism and intelligence trade craft, and on the other hand side an engagement with the protagonists and their characters and personal affairs. The personal side is also treated with some detachment that allows the viewer to be more of an observer than an advocate, although given the tragedies that befall them one cannot but grieve with them.
There is an underlying theme to this story I think. The creators show in detail what the human cost is of working in the intelligence profession and the personal struggle, brutality, and courage it takes to do this kind of work. It is by definition a dirty business. In many ways, the series reminds me of another favorite TV series of mine, The Wire, which takes a similar approach, and applies it to undercover police work.
The morale here seems to be that as much as intelligence work relies on cold calculations of national interest in a hierarchical, bureaucratized environment, it is still held hostage by the very human emotions of its actors. Compassion and romance creep into carefully conceived operations as the very stressed out pawns in the intelligence machinery do their best to reconcile the demand of their jobs with their conscience and hormones.
One area that I think could have been given more coverage is the motivation of these people, although it is hinted at and ranges from patriotic duty to a taste for danger.
Also noteworthy is the fact that although enemies abound, there is no overt vilification of any one person, nation, or ideology, making this series a welcome departure from the simplistic hurrah patriotism that usual infuses works about the military and intelligence.
Hostiles (2017)
A Somber Meditation on Violence, Trauma, and Forgiveness
"Hostiles" is a slow moving and somber treatment of some of the aspects of the American Indian Wars, which were marked by brutal violence by both the native Americans and the US military.
The film is set in the 1890's, when these Native Americans had been largely subdued and their survivors confined in remote reservations and in prisons. Veteran Indian fighter, Capt. Joseph Blocker (Christian Bale) is ordered against his will to escort his dying, old, nemesis, Chief Yellow Hawk, from confinement in New Mexico to his ancestral burial grounds in Montana. To do the job he is joined by a few handpicked troops. Yes, this is a road movie.
Along the way, they pick up Rosalie Quaid (Rosamund Pike), whose family has just been murdered by a marauding Blackfeet war party. This is graphically shown in the opening scene. She is in a state of shock and the film dwells for some time to show her grief and despair.
As the little trek makes its way towards Montana, it encounters an attack by the Blackfeet war party, a kidnapping and rape of the women in the group by white fur trappers, a murderous soldier on his way to be hanged, and a deadly encounter with a white landowner who refuses to have Chief Yellow Hawk's body buried on his land.
In the course of sharing the journey, Blocker and the Indian chief forgive each other for the hurt and terror they caused each other's people. Rosalie, likewise, evolves from shocked terror at the sight of native Americans to compassion and forgiveness.
While the evolution of the old Indian butcher and the just traumatized Rosalie from Indian haters to compassionate forgivers is a stretch, it does not feel overly forced in the film, as the mutual forgiveness slowly evolves through small gestures and the shared dangers of the journey.
This film is much about deadly violence and its effects. One of them is that in the end only Blocker, Rosalie, and Little Bear, the old chief's young grandson survive the journey.
The film is a series of encounters interspersed with scenes of the group making their way through a slowly changing landscape to their destination. The nature scenes do not have the majestic magnetism of, say, The Revanant, where they take on a mystical life of their own. Rather nature is just backdrop, somehow tainted by the violence that unfolds in it.
There are some powerful, meditative shots of people in groups, or alone, but the film lacks visual power, the two fort towns little more than cobbled together sets that could have come from a Bonanza episode, the nature scenes powerless and almost ugly.
There is a bit of a forced political correctness about the film. Is development of mutual respect and even love between bitter, mortal, enemies the probable story between Blocker and Yellow Hawk? Perhaps, now that the war and the killing are largely over. Also, the presence of an Afro-American soldier in the group who is the trusted subordinate of the Captain, without there being even a hint of racism, strikes me as unhistorical. The Revanant, where human relations are rife with racial animosity, does a better job in portraying American history.
Christian Bale does a fine in portraying a man marked by guilt, stress, depression, and rage because of a life lived in violence, even if that is the job description, and the many losses of friends he had to bear. He has that perpetual, tough, glum expression on his face that you often see in period photos of white males. A hard life to be sure.
Rosamund Pike is equally effective in portraying a deeply traumatized woman, even if her evolution to comforter and love interest of the Captain is a bit swift.
I found the characters of the Native Americans underdeveloped. Once again, they have the flavor of extras, and there is not much interest in investigating what lurks beneath their stoic, macho, warrior presentation. The female Native Americans are almost completely ignored.
A hard look at the American past that makes for contemplation, as we share the pain of these souls over acts of unspeakable violence, injustice, and grief and trauma, and their struggle to survive by killing. The reconciliation of the enemies is moving. While not exactly distracting entertainment, this uncomfortable film is food for thought and soul.