Until the last 30 minutes of The Last King of Scotland, in which black African culture suddenly morphs into a dark creature that violates its European character, I adored this movie. As the film begins we're dropped into Uganda--a veritable tour through the countryside, where we see people, wildlife, social and political gatherings, and all from the perspective of a white male who has never seen anything like it. In this respect the film starts as a liberating culture shock--you want to drop your materialistic life, get involved, and see this place. Very quickly (so as not to romanticize the country's political and social realities) we meet political leader General Idi Amin Dada (Forest Whitaker) who basically terrorizes his country. Though before we know any of that we come to trust him, particularly when he employs a Scot by the name of Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) as his top advisor. Without spoiling the end of the story, it's sufficient to say Garrigan endures some pretty horrible physical punishment and mental torment that doesn't follow with much resolve, leaving us rather regretful that we visited this foreign place to begin with. I can't imagine this was the intent of the filmmakers, but the clumsy humor in the epilogue subtitles made that blemish even worse. The ending aside, the first two-thirds were beautiful, super-saturated shots of a place not see too often on film, and Forest Whitaker's performance blew my mind.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
The Last King of Scotland - 2006 - Film
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Until the last 30 minutes of The Last King of Scotland, in which black African culture suddenly morphs into a dark creature that violates its European character, I adored this movie. As the film begins we're dropped into Uganda--a veritable tour through the countryside, where we see people, wildlife, social and political gatherings, and all from the perspective of a white male who has never seen anything like it. In this respect the film starts as a liberating culture shock--you want to drop your materialistic life, get involved, and see this place. Very quickly (so as not to romanticize the country's political and social realities) we meet political leader General Idi Amin Dada (Forest Whitaker) who basically terrorizes his country. Though before we know any of that we come to trust him, particularly when he employs a Scot by the name of Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) as his top advisor. Without spoiling the end of the story, it's sufficient to say Garrigan endures some pretty horrible physical punishment and mental torment that doesn't follow with much resolve, leaving us rather regretful that we visited this foreign place to begin with. I can't imagine this was the intent of the filmmakers, but the clumsy humor in the epilogue subtitles made that blemish even worse. The ending aside, the first two-thirds were beautiful, super-saturated shots of a place not see too often on film, and Forest Whitaker's performance blew my mind.
Until the last 30 minutes of The Last King of Scotland, in which black African culture suddenly morphs into a dark creature that violates its European character, I adored this movie. As the film begins we're dropped into Uganda--a veritable tour through the countryside, where we see people, wildlife, social and political gatherings, and all from the perspective of a white male who has never seen anything like it. In this respect the film starts as a liberating culture shock--you want to drop your materialistic life, get involved, and see this place. Very quickly (so as not to romanticize the country's political and social realities) we meet political leader General Idi Amin Dada (Forest Whitaker) who basically terrorizes his country. Though before we know any of that we come to trust him, particularly when he employs a Scot by the name of Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) as his top advisor. Without spoiling the end of the story, it's sufficient to say Garrigan endures some pretty horrible physical punishment and mental torment that doesn't follow with much resolve, leaving us rather regretful that we visited this foreign place to begin with. I can't imagine this was the intent of the filmmakers, but the clumsy humor in the epilogue subtitles made that blemish even worse. The ending aside, the first two-thirds were beautiful, super-saturated shots of a place not see too often on film, and Forest Whitaker's performance blew my mind.
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