Domino

Director Brian de Palma

 

de Palma with actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

 

de Palma with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and actress Carice van Houten

 






DOMINO                   D                    

Denmark  France  Italy  Belgium  Netherlands (89 mi)  2019 d:  Brian de Palma

Kind of a throwback film from an earlier era, feeding into the global paranoia about Islamic terrorism, like the cheapo exploitation flicks pumped out by your typical Golan-Globus production, founded by Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, which in the mid-80’s were cranking out more than a dozen films per year, coinciding with the VHS boom of the late 70’s and early 80’s, literally packing the shelves of local video stores, when the company had an insatiable appetite for high octane B-movies, where the secret was their embrace of the international market, something Hollywood was slow to comprehend.  Enter Brian de Palma, a shlock movie specialist with an affinity for films from that era, where this is only his second film in more than a decade, seemingly making this film on the fly.  Shot in Spain and Denmark with an international cast and crew, it couldn’t be more confusing, spoken in English instead of Danish, where the sound’s not in synch with the words being spoken, feeling like it was hastily completed.  As it turns out, de Palma had an additional hour that has been excised from the final version, with the release delayed for a year, with the director removed from the final product.  Completely frustrated with the process, de Palma is quoted a year ago as saying, “I had a lot of problems in financing [the film].  I never experienced such a horrible movie set.  A large part of our team has not even been paid yet by the Danish producers.  The film is finished and ready to go out, but I have no idea what its future will hold, it is currently in the hands of the producers.  This was my first experience in Denmark and most likely my last.”  Rife with stereotypes, exactly like all his earlier films, this is not exactly a picture of taste and refinement, using crude exploitive imagery that is not for the meek, revitalizing ISIS beheadings and suicide bombers, creating propaganda imagery as recruiting material, which this film is more than happy to recreate, emulating their style, suggesting de Palma actually finds cinematic aspects of ISIS propaganda intriguing, perhaps admiring the way (befitting of the age of selfies) terrorists love to document their own atrocities, using a lead character to speak the director’s mind, “Even the way they shoot it, it's like they're professionals.  I mean, the use of graphics, slow-motion, even a drone shot.”  If that’s not disgusting enough, less of an action thriller, this is really a threadbare romance taking place in a murky world of international terrorism, though there’s barely a pulse that registers, as the man in question is actually dead, killed off early in the film, yet the pangs of love survive.  There’s something silly and passé about the storyline, like recalling a bad dream, but it doesn’t have to make sense, though it’s an attempt to be topical.  

Set in Denmark, with a pan of the sleek architecture of Copenhagen reminding viewers where they are, we follow a pair of hard-nosed cops, the more flamboyant Christian (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and the older, internally repressed Lars (Søren Malling), who seems lost on a different wavelength, cynical and downbeat, as if uncomfortable in his own skin.  While Christian obsesses about food and sex, Lars is moody and inherently disinterested all the time, though he’s punctual, picking up his partner the next morning, but his female sex partner in bed doesn’t want to let him go, allowing himself to get distracted, actually forgetting his gun, an act for which consequences invariably ensue.  Responding to a routine call, described as a domestic dispute (altogether missing a van parked out front in plain view), they encounter a man on the elevator with blood on the tips of his shoes, Ezra Tarzi, Eriq Ebouaney, never better than portraying Patrice Lumumba in LUMUMBA (2000), also appearing in de Palma’s own FEMME FATALE (2002), but here he goes through the motions as the angry black man, arrested on the spot, handcuffed and apprehended, with Christian borrowing his partner’s gun to take a look upstairs while Lars awaits a patrol van to take their prisoner.  What he discovers is revolting, as Tarzi has been torturing a victim with a knife, but by the time he runs back downstairs, Tarzi has escaped the cuffs and stabbed his partner in the neck (without his gun to defend himself), making a break out the window onto the roof.  Unsure of what to do, but at the urging of his partner, he bolts out the window giving chase, where the steepness of the roof gives each of them problems, with both perilously hanging from a dangling gutter overlooking the street down below in an homage to Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), eventually falling into a crate of tomatoes.  While Christian is momentarily dazed, men in suits apprehend Tarzi, taking him away, leaving Christian to ponder what just happened.  But this sets the wheels in motion, as Lars lies unconscious in a hospital bed while Christian unravels the dark past of Tarzi, a former special forces Libyan whose patriotic father was beheaded by a terrorist mastermind Salah al-Din (Mohammed Azaay), who as it turns out spent 12 years in Guantánamo as a model prisoner without incident, but literally hours after his release he goes underground completely undetected, currently seen prepping a young female suicide bomber on her next mission, which will send fear into the hearts of the West while bringing glory to God and Islam (“Ending the lives of infidels is a great thing.  Scaring the millions of others who see it live on TV is something even greater!”), with de Palma in split screen capturing the face of the assassin mixed with the horrified faces of the victims as she machine guns actors, models, and photographers on the red carpet runway of the Netherlands Film Festival (an homage to his own film Femme Fatale shot on the Cannes red carpet), causing sheer pandemonium, but also utter jubilation when viewed from al-Din’s perspective. 

With underwritten characters that never come alive and a tepid orchestral score that falls flat, this borders on the banal, where easily the silliest thread in the film is the portrayal of the CIA, given comical stature from none other than Guy Pearce (in a bad accent) playing Agent Joe Martin, who has no redeeming moral values, so corrupt that he may as well be a criminal himself, essentially blackmailing Tarzi, who he kidnaps at the crime scene (while imprisoning his children), to do the dirty work that the CIA is hamstrung to do due to legal restraints, basically encouraging Tarzi to be a mad dog on the loose, operating with impunity, free to torture, murder, or rough up potential suspects as he pleases, hell-bent on revenge for the death of his father, ferociously targeting al-Din, with Agent Martin sitting on the sidelines casually taking credit for it all.  Meanwhile Christian joins forces with the detective assigned to investigate the case, Alex (Carice van Houten), who has a secret romantic history with his partner, a revelation that leaves Christian completely flummoxed, incapable of believing his partner kept secrets from him, but may explain his reticent behavior of late.  This romantic storyline is simply Hollywood overkill, as they love to express romance in the backdrop of war or some other tragic event, supposedly accentuating the power of love, but since Lars dies in the hospital while Christian and Alex are on the road in search of Tarzi, there is no love affair to speak of, as it all happened in a hermetically sealed universe, becoming more of a memorial tribute.  With all events converging in Almería, Spain, we discover a tomato motif used throughout the film is the means for weapons trafficking, smuggled while concealed in tomato crates onto ferries crossing the sea into Morocco, easily transporting weapons into Libya or Mali or the sites of other ISIS uprisings.  If it weren’t so comically simplistic, especially the coincidence of recognizing the terrorist leader in the front seat of a produce truck, following him to a bullring in the center of town where another planned attack is to take place, which must have lured de Palma, known for creating dynamic set pieces in real life locations, but this one kind of fizzles out instead.  Apparently they had funding difficulties, unable to find extras to fill the stadium to capacity, so the shot never materialized as intended.  Nonetheless, there are few memorable movie scenes shot in bullrings, so this has an air of anticipation, with all the forces converging at one dramatic point in time, a powderkeg about to explode, with de Palma mixing a modern era drone viewpoint with old-fashioned binocular shots, but few will likely find this resolution appealing, reduced to a one-liner from Agent Martin, explaining how he figured out what was going on, “We’re Americans, we read your emails.”  In the end, however, international terrorism has been reduced to a personal revenge saga, bathed in an unseen romance, with plenty of revolting propaganda footage taking center stage. 

Nowhere to Hide

NOWHERE TO HIDE                      B-                   

Norway  Sweden  Iraq  (86 mi)  2016  d:  Zaradasht Ahmed               Official website

It’s difficult to diagnose this war.  It’s an undiagnosed war.  You only see the symptoms—the killing, displacements, blood baths.  But you don’t understand the disease.
—Nori Sharif   

First of all, not to be confused with the 1999 Korean action flick by the same name, and nearly ten other films also using the same title, so there’s little excuse not to come up with something new, though to be fair, it does fit the material.  The ultimate tragedy of this recent outpouring of Middle East documentaries is that the United States simply had no business being there in the first place, with no justifiable reason to invade Iraq in 2003, where we’ve simply opened up Pandora’s Box and made of mess of things there ever since, including the presence of al Qaeda and Isis who have been everpresent in the region, where it has gotten so indescribably bad, with cities reduced to rubble and conditions returning to Byzantine times, that it seems impossible to clean up the mess, leaving streams of dead and displaced people with few, if any, options.  Though the film does not recognize a distinction, as unlike Syria, where citizens have been bombed by their own government, this is not a film about refugees, where citizens have a legitimate fear for their lives, seeking asylum somewhere else where they will be safe, as the displaced people here don’t really have a beef with their own government, who they do not view as a threat, but are victims of a war with Isis, a jihadist military organization that overran their territory in a power and land grab, with people fleeing from their homes, ending up in a temporary shelter in the middle of the desert.  But the price paid to run Isis back out of that territory is what reduced these cities to rubble, where there are no homes left or businesses to return to.  So where do these displaced people go?  That’s the unanswered question for which there really are no answers.  The opening of the film introduces us to Nori Sharif, married with four children, a medic working in a hospital in the town of Jalawla, a professional job with a government salary where he worked for more than a decade, indicating the problems he was used to treating changed over the years from simple fractures to severe battle injuries.  Because of his familiarity with the region, the filmmaker, an Iraqi Kurd living in Norway, offered him a camera with instructions how to use it, asking him to record examples of what he sees.  While the area of Diyala province is mostly a mix of Kurds, Sunni, and Shiites with a tradition of living quietly and peacefully, where the remoteness of the region caused little interest to the rest of the world, that all changed with the American invasion in 2003, where it is now one of the most battle-scarred regions, described as the “Triangle of Death.”  One of the first decisions made by the occupying Americans was to disempower the Sunnis, the party of Saddam Hussein, including police and army personnel, who had a stabilizing presence in the region, causing instant friction, leading to a Shiite majority in the new government, arousing the ire of the Sunni population, which initially fueled the insurgency aimed against the Americans, making their continued presence extremely unpopular.  The film actually begins in 2011 as the last of the American troops are withdrawing, creating an Iraqi jubilation that they finally have their country back again.          

The immediate effect of the film, however, is the raw and amateur quality, much of it resembling reality TV, where Nori attempts to explain what he’s filming, but he offers no historical context, so many viewers will be left in the dark, unable to ascertain who’s fighting who, or why.  This grainy quality does the film no favors, as it’s clear Nori is not a filmmaker, yet it’s his footage that we’re watching as we witness a local wedding or get firsthand footage of emergency room treatments, where his eyes provide the focal point of the entire film.  It’s clear the world outside has become much more dangerous, as he sits on his roof at night, but reports that a dozen others in his neighborhood have been killed by snipers, where neighbors are killing neighbors.  Nori is not a journalist, but he leaves out pertinent details, where the fighting between the Shiites and the Sunnis constitute most of the violence in Iraq, as the insurgency simply found a new enemy once the Americans left, namely the party aligned with the Americans.  With the arrival of Isis jihadist fighters, the violence reaches unprecedented heights, with the radio announcing the death of nearly 2000 Iraqis in just a single month.  Add to this land mines, car bombs, and suicide bombers, where a curfew is imposed in his town from 5 pm to 5 am, where eventually we get a sense that Kurds are fighting Isis for control of his town, as Jalawla borders Kurdish territories.  Yet when Nori takes his camera and films inside the gruesome remains of a car used in a suicide bombing, many will think he’s crossed an ethical line in an obsession to reveal all the brutal details, where one wonders if we need to see dismembered body parts and pools of blood in what resembles graphic crime scene footage, where the audience is usually spared this kind of horrific detail.  Shortly afterwards we hear a discussion about several young men who lived nearby that were kidnapped and beheaded, while dead bodies are left on the steps of the local police station in another message to residents.  Finding it too dangerous to stay, most of the staff and all of the doctors abandon the hospital, as Nori is one of the few who stay, yet we hear the constant sound of an approaching battle that sends them home as well, gathering what they can in their car and leaving in a hurry.  What follows is a frenzy of chaotic actions, with Nori handing the camera to one of his sons, pointing out the Isis flag hoisted atop the city as he documents his exit, frantically moving from one village to the next, constantly in fear, but all are under attack, where they keep escaping deeper into the abandoned homes in the desert until they finally discover the Sa’ad IDP Camp (Internally Displaced Persons), providing emergency shelter in rows upon rows of identical two-roomed huts, with as many as twenty people to a hut, yet there is running water nearby.  It’s not much, where there’s next to nothing for their kids to do, but it’s a safe haven.

Only during this final exodus does the film really elevate to a level of poignancy, as the subject shifts from objectively filming hospital victims or casualties of Iraqi infighting, where people were still able to lead some semblance of a normal life in Jalawla, yet now the camera was subjectively pointed at Nori himself, as he becomes the film’s central focus, forced to flee from his home and his job, where constant uncertainty greets him.  Running out of water, his kids get sick, with bugs invading the face of one of his sons, where this journey into the unknown is an anxiety-ridden experience, forced to endure horrible circumstances, where their very survival comes into question.  Falling off the edge of a life they once knew, they are suddenly in a freefall where nothing makes sense anymore, as they are surrounded by confusion and fear.  Joining others in similar circumstances, with new families arriving every day, it’s clear this is not a place you want to be, as people share horror stories of what they’ve witnessed to force them from their homes.  While at least Nori’s family remains intact, not something everyone can say, yet they’ve reached a point of suspension, where their paralyzed lives are literally on hold, where any future is uncertain.  After a passage of time, with Isis driven out, Nori and a select few return to Jalawla to inspect the hospital, where it’s done without permission, as they don’t have security clearance to be there, apparently under Shiite military control, but everything has been demolished, all the medical equipment smashed and destroyed, where it resembles the total destruction and ruins of war, where there’s nothing left to return to.  As he pauses in reflection afterwards at a bridge overlooking a river, he finally realizes there’s absolutely no hope of return, which will devastate his family, still stuck in the temporary shelter, as there’s nowhere else to go.  This transition from the hope and promise of a liberated Iraq in the beginning to the utter annihilation of their future is hard for anyone to reconcile, especially those forced to endure this kind of loss and deprivation, where it’s impossible to understand this kind of emotional upheaval, becoming one of his nation’s casualties, viewed as little more than collateral damage, joining thousands of internally displaced people in Iraq, which pale in comparison to the nearly half a million dead and millions of refugees exiting neighboring Syria.  Human deprivation is damaging, wherever it occurs, especially in such a senseless fashion, where human life means so little.  This rare, insider’s view offers a glimpse of life in the far corners of the Middle East, where conflicts remain and tragedy is an everyday occurrence, reveals a future that has been stolen from this younger generation, forced to endure squalor and catastrophic harm, yet somehow life goes on, even if there’s no home to return to.  In America, perhaps the only incident remotely similar is the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, which flooded more than 80% of the city, where the storm displaced more than a million people in the Gulf Coast region, with many able to return home within a few days, but up to 600,000 households were still displaced months later.  Brilliantly filmed by Spike Lee in When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2005), the film is a blistering portrait of government ineptitude and moral outrage.  Lacking the artistry and moral indignation of Lee’s film, the onus of this film is with the viewers, carrying a similar message of displacement, featuring the casualties of war and the trauma of being uprooted from what was formerly your life, subjectively placing the viewer in this family’s situation, having no chance of ever returning home, where your life has been stripped of its possibilities, literally placed on hold, and suspended until circumstances that have yet to materialize can develop.