AUSTRALIA APOLOGIZES TO ITS NATIVE POPULATION WITH SIMPLISTIC MELODRAMA
Titles at the beginning and of Australia frame the film as an apology to the aboriginal population, which until 1973 lived under an assimilationist policy that for many years kidnapped the young to live with whites, creating what has been called the “stolen generation.” The government of 2008 formally apologized to the native Australian population. However, rather than focusing on the multitude of aboriginal blacks, the film centers on the cattle industry in which King Carney (played by Bryan Brown) has a near monopoly, challenged only by one small company run by the Ashleys. When the movie begins, Lady Sara Ashley (played by Nicole Kidman) leaves England because of a rumor about her husband’s libertinism, but he dies before she arrives, leaving her the heir in possession of valuable land and cattle. As the rivalry plays out, there is plenty of intrigue, a love story, the Japanese bombing of Darwin in World War II, and a prominent role for twelve-year-old Nullah (played by Brandon Walters) whose birth mother and birthfather are of aboriginal and European ancestry, respectively. Directed by Baz Luhrmann, Australia’s 165 minutes may offer some filmviewers little more than cardboard characters of the sort that the director provided in Moulin Rouge! (2001). MH
HUNGER CELEBRATES THE MARTYRDOM OF BOBBY SANDS
Provisional Irish Republican Army leader Bobby Sands (played by Michael Fassbender) died in Maze Prison while on a 66-day hunger strike on May 5, 1981, at the age of 27. Hunger, directed by Steve McQueen (no relation to the actor), begins by setting the premise for that strike by revealing the brutal way in which IRA demonstrators were treated in prison and how they reacted. Believing that they were not common criminals, IRA detainees demanded to be given Special Category Status as political prisoners. When their demands were not met, they first refused to don prison garb and thus remained naked except for a blanket. When that tactic failed, and the guards refused to provide toilets and washing facilities in their cells, they refused to wash, coated their cells with feces, and dumped urine into the prison hallways. Next, Sands called a general hunger strike in which the prisoners unconditionally demanded the right to wear their own clothes, to refuse prison work, to associate with one another, to have educational and recreational opportunities, and weekly visits including mail and parcels. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher refused to respond until Sands and nine others died. After their martyrdom, there was an escalation of IRA activity and increased sympathy for the prisoners and their cause around the world. Nevertheless, the struggle continued until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Due to the graphic portrayal of the brutality by the prison guards, which resembles the ongoing treatment of mostly innocent Guantánamo prisoners, the Political Film Society has nominated Hunger as best film on human rights of 2008. MH
FROST/NIXON GOES BEHIND THE MINDGAME
In 1977, three years after President Nixon resigned from the presidency, talk-show host David Frost conducted four televised interviews. Not politically savvy, he was interested in advancing his career by sitting opposite the biggest newsmaker in the world. Directed by Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon not only goes behind the scenes to expose how both Frost (played by Michael Sheen) and Nixon (played by Frank Langella) were stage managed but also serves as a paradigm for a possible interview with President Bush about his legacy of far more war crimes than Nixon ever imagined. (Just as Bush has brushed aside culpability for claiming WMD falsely as a pretext for invading Iraq, Nixon claimed that his secret bombing of Cambodia was to destroy a nonexistent Viet Cong “bamboo” headquarters.) In the first three interviews, Nixon comes out the victor over a lightweight Frost. Then Frost does his homework, finding statements in a court record regarding the plea bargain by Charles Colson, Chief Counsel to Nixon, which contradicted Nixon’s previous public statement that he knew nothing about the Watergate cover-up. Confronted by that contradiction in the final interview, Nixon is thrown off balance, claims that anything he did was legal because he was president, avers that no one else shares that view (unaware of Dick Cheney’s opinion on the matter), and apologizes for wrongdoing for the first time on camera. What the film fails to mention, however, is that in accepting President Gerald Ford’s pardon in 1974, Nixon had already admitted guilt, which is a condition of any pardon, though journalists have never reported that fact. The Political Film Society has nominated Frost/Nixon as best film exposé of 2008. MH