Jan 30 2006
The problem with Syriana
I saw Syriana last week. It was written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, who also wrote the screenplay for the Stephen Soderberg-directed Traffic. (Soderberg executive produced Syriana.) I really liked Traffic — in the same way I liked last year’s Crash. I like long ensemble films with interconnecting stories, at least when they are nicely put together and have a lot of human interest elements. Grand Canyon from 1991 is another one that comes to mind.
Syriana had all the good things — an excellent cast, good writing, good direction, human interest, and nefarious corporate and political shenanigans too. What’s not to like?
The problem with Syriana is that it is simply too ambitious for a two hour movie. When I left the cinema I had a general sense of what had happened in the film, but I could not figure out how it all fit together. Fortunately, Wikipedia has a spoiler-filled explanation of the story, and I encourage any of you who have seen the film and are as confused as I was to check it out. It explains everything in a few paragraphs.
The one thing that Syriana didn’t have enough of is time. You simply can’t effectively mix that many different stories of that level of complexity into a two hour film. Three to four hours would have been much better, but that is far too long for a theatrical release (Peter Jackson notwithstanding).
Rather, Syriana should have been made as a BBC mini-series in four, or maybe even six, one-hour segments.
Why BBC? Because the Beeb has a reputation for making exceptionally good films in the mini-series format. Made-for-TV minis in the U.S. are usually over-wrought historical cheese-fests (at least the network ones are), and mini-series made in Canada are overly earnest and sentimental. But the Beeb…
The Beeb brought us the awesome Bangkok Hilton back in 1989, a series so good I watched it twice. The same year they also brought us Traffik, the impressive series about drug running between Pakistan and Europe. That production inspired the later Gaghan/Soderberg cinematic version (Traffic), which I mentioned above. Then there was the Beeb’s 1995 mini series Pride & Prejudice, which some people think is better than any of the cinematic versions, including the current one.
No doubt they’ve done some klunkers too, but the ones I remember were done very, very well. The advantage of a mini-series is that it gives you the time and the space to really map out complicated situations and characters. And you get to take a break between each episode to digest what you’ve seen and to anticipate what you’ll see next.
Syriana has a great story, possibly even an important story (although it is fiction, it is inspired by real events and real people). It’s too bad the film makers tried to squeeze ten pounds of potatoes into a five pound bag. As to be expected, they lost a few spuds in doing so.
9 Comments on “The problem with Syriana”
It’s funny - I actually liked how they left enough open space that we’re left with an impressionistic picture, not a super-detailed view of everything.
I also think it’s the first movie that I can remember that (intentionally) left the true emotional/plot climax of the movie to occur AFTER the time shown on screen is finished.
Lord of the Rings trilogy did this unintentionally and in doing so removed much of the POINT of the series. But in Syriana I thought it was both intentional and very well done.
I actually understood Syriana quite well.
The only problem with it was the first hour. You feel like you have ADD because it hops around so much. I saw people walk out of the movie theatre at this point.
At the end all of it comes together. The part when Mat Daemon explains to the Sheik’s son, how he should run the country is the peak. From that point everything starts to make sense.
Absolutely outstanding message. All Americans should watch this movie!
You guys are just showing off. ;-)
OK, I admit I was a bit sleepy when I went in, and missed a few of the subtitles when people were speaking Farsi and Arabic. But still, there were a bunch of things that weren’t clear to me. Like, for example (SPOILER ALERT):
- That the Christopher Plumber character was a lawyer. All along I thought he was an oil exectutive, which partly explains why I couldn’t figure out his role.
- That Prince Nasir granted Woodman’s (Matt D’s character) company the oil interests specifically as a result of the pool accident. I know there were references to that later, but it wasn’t clear if it was just a sign of Woodman’s sellout or if it really was a sympathy pay-off. In fact, it wasn’t even clear to me if the pool accident really was an accident or not.
- What was the signficance of Clooney’s verbal gaff in front of the “liberation of Iran” people. What does it even mean, “liberation of Iran?” Were they right-wingers wanting to “liberate Iran” the way Iraq is currently being “liberated,” or did they want to liberate it from American oil interests? (I assume it was the former, but it wasn’t obvious.)
- What the f*ck was all that with the torture of Clooney? Why was he in Lebanon? Why did he get kidnapped? By whom?
The only story line that wasn’t confusing was the one about the migrant workers.
I wasn’t 100% on the verbal gaff either, but that didn’t take anything away from the big picture.
The greatest message from this movie is delivered through Prince Nassir and Woodman’s communications.
Clooney’s character is not too clear. His relationship with his son are trivial and don’t add anything to the movie. His travels around the Middle East are a little confusing.
He was in Lebanon to kidnap Prince Nassir sent by the CIA. Same people that blew Nassir up on the last frame.
He failed because the mercenary that was supposed to help him, (Moussaui) turned against him, and they kidnapped Clooney’s character instead.
Yeah, but why? Why did the mercenary turn against him? With so many questions unanswered, it starts to feel like things are happening randomly.
Michael, I usually am not such a stickler for details, as I kind of like taking the impressionistic approach you took. But in this case it really is a story about details, and I still think it would have been better to play it out over a longer stretch so we could not only glimpse those details but really feel them and their implications.
Blork, thanks for posting the Wikipedia link!
Massawi (mercenary) has turned 180, and is now an Iranian agent. He tortures Boone to get info about the 2 Iranian weapons dealers killed in the opening minutes.
Whiting didn’t make sense to me until the very end. He’s former CIA, present K-Street lobbyist and biggie lawyer, and apparently in bed with big oil too. Characature global power player.
But, why did Whiting decide Boone should be the fall guy? Still can’t filter that one.
I also missed the CLI (committee to liberate Iran)/ Connex tie.
I can make my own connections - Iranian people overthrow Islamic regime, and new secular govt stablizes U.S. oil imports. Certainly any group facilitating that would get Connex’s support.
But how did the movie tie them together? CLI gets a seat at the CIA’s interview of Boone for a desk job - how is that???
People who don’t grasp the complexity of this movie right on are too narrow minded or simply stupid…