Getting Around to Argo... Again

With Ben Affleck's Argo poised to take the best picture Oscar home, I decided to give it another go. If you've read this blog during the past year, you know that this film was on my radar long before it came out and I was very anxious about it because of the Iranian connection and the event it covers. I even reviewed the trailer!

I also reviewed the film after its release, when I was disappointed by its lack of cogent politics but impressed by its seamless production values. Today, in my piece at The Film Experience, I've discussed the reasons, merited and unmerited, for the film's success on the awards circuit and my feelings about it. Be sure to check it out here.

Also, if you look to the sidebar on the right, you'll see a new addition under 'The Film Experience by Nathaniel Rogers' that takes you directly to my posts on his website.

Motifs in Cinema: The Dichotomy Between Fantasy And Reality

"Motifs in Cinema is a discourse across several film blogs, assessing the way in which various thematic elements have been used in the 2012 cinematic landscape. How does a common theme vary in use from a comedy to a drama? Are filmmakers working from a similar canvas when they assess the issue of death or the dynamics of revenge? Like most things, a film begins with an idea - Motifs in Cinema assesses how the use of a common theme across various films changes when utilized by different artists." 

- Andrew K.

Andrew has a knack for providing us with great motifs to explore for this series, but for the second year running, nothing piqued my interest as much as the dichotomy between fantasy and reality. At the risk of coming off as incredibly conceited, let me quote myself from last year's article to illustrate why I remain so interested in this topic: "Fantasy, in the strictest sense of the word, is inseparable from the cinema. What are fictional films if not the fantasy of those who imagine them, write them and act them? What is fantasy if not the imaginary world we immerse ourselves in for a few hours in the dark?"

All cinema can essentially be boiled down to that word: fantasy. It's all unreal and imagined. Take a film like Argo, for example, that tells the true story of a landmark political event, and yet, remains so infused with the glorification of the proceedings that it becomes difficult to suspend disbelief when the Iranian forces are chasing the airplane on the airport tarmac. On the other end of the spectrum is Holy Motors, so unhinged from reality that all presumptions about the real world are destabilized and fantasy becomes the default mode of thought. Monsieur Oscar permanently lives in purgatory between fantasy and an alternate reality.

Oscar's Best Short Film Nominees

At The Film Experience, I've discussed the ten films that are nominated for best live action short and best animated short at the Oscars this year. Both categories have their fair share of duds, but they also include a couple of films that are truly Oscar-worthy. You can read about the animated ones here, and the live action ones here; Join in the conversation with your favorites and predictions.

Highlights: 2012's Best Film Ending...

... is After Lucia (directed by Michel Franco).

Words can't quite describe how shocking this terrifyingly prolonged long take is, and of course, I'm not willing to explain it at all because the less you know about this marvelous film, the more you'll enjoy its many twists and surprises. After Lucia is not short on disturbing or thought-provoking images, but this bone-chilling finale puts the audience in an inescapable turmoil that lasts long after the curtains have closed.


All 'Best of 2012' Entries...

Highlights: 2012's Newcomer of the Year...

... is Clément Métayer (Something in the Air).

I will definitely need to re-watch Olivier Assayas's semi-autobiographical latest film before I can confirm my initial judgement, seeing as it was clouded by the crammed screening schedule at TIFF. I enjoyed it quite a lot and I imagine I will even more so on a second go. But if there's one thing that doesn't need a refresher, it's Métayer's heartfelt, lived-in performance as the hot-headed teen revolutionary at the film's center. There's quite a burden on his young shoulders but I'm not exaggerating when I say he carries it as effortlessly as Edgar Ramirez did in Assayas's Carlos.


All 'Best of 2012' Entries...

Three Short Takes: Anna Dark Thirty (&Bone)

Zero Dark Thirty (dir. Bigelow)

So much controversy has surrounded the newest collaboration between Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal that the film's cinematic qualities seem to have taken secondary importance, but this chronicle of the decade long hunt for Osama Bin Laden is masterfully directed and tightly constructed around what was, on a day to day basis, a mostly mundane affair. Bigelow's approach keeps the audience at a distance, avoids creating an emotional connection and gives a more or less journalistic account of the procedural, which is why I'm at a loss when it comes to the accusations that the film endorses torture. I think it's obvious that Zero Dark Thirty claims these "enhanced interrogation" techniques helped moved forward the investigation but in no way does it attempt to make a commentary one way or another.

Then again, I'm falling for the same trap here. Putting my opinions on the politics aside, this is an astonishing film. Anchored by an incredibly smart and sensitive performance by Jessica Chastain and a strong supporting cast, Bigelow's film is a grand exercise in building tension without embellishing the core with genre elements. The first half of the film can strike viewers as slow but the nature of the mission requires a faithful telling of the story to map out the process with such meticulous detail. Excepting certain sequences where the sprawling editing drags the narrative a bit and one sequence where excitement is meant to be heightened but is, in effect, only dampened because of the predictable outcome, Zero Dark Thirty is taut and riveting in the way it puts on the screen everything we already knew but were afraid to confront. And the final act of the film, where all the talk and scuffle culminates in the raid we know was coming all along, is a masterstroke of directing, the work of an extremely talented filmmaker at her very best. (A)

The Case for Argo

The Golden Globes came and went and Ben Affleck's Argo landed another double win for Best Director/Best Picture after doing the exact same at the BFCA. The two groups, as you may well be aware, have no overlap with the Academy in membership but we all know that every little and not so little award can have a bearing on how the big show turns out at the end and I have a feeling in a few weeks' time we might still be considering the Globes as a vital moment in this season.

In recent years, the Globe winner hasn't lined up with the Oscar champ as often as one might think. Most awards pundits will assume that this year will turn out to be another one where the two can't agree on a winner, seeing as both Argo and Les Misérables have missed out on best director nominations at the Oscars. But the industry good will that has been accumulating for Ben Affleck and his film since its TIFF premiere seems to be growing every day. Of course, not every week will be as packed with announcements as this one was, so there will be a lot of calm before the storm. Lincoln (warmly endorsed by former U.S. president Bill Clinton during last night's ceremony) and Life of Pi (boosted by its surprising haul of 11 Oscar nominations) will surely be capitalizing on that silent period. The former will also surely benefit from at least one SAG award in the process.

It's important to consider that no film has won the top prize at the Oscars without a nomination for its director since Driving Miss Daisy way back in 1989. But records are meant to be broken and this season is such a strange one. If any film ever wanted to jump in and steal the show unexpectedly, this would be the year to do it. And Argo seems to have all the ingredients of a surprise winner.

Magic of Cinema in Tabu

Of all the films I've seen this year, Tabu is the only one I'm willing to throw the coveted M word at. Perhaps not coincidentally, it's also the hardest one to write about. I tried at first, but then gave up, even though I'm brimming with thoughts and emotions on this unique, exemplary piece of filmmaking. And in a rare case - in fact, if my memory assists, the only case I can recall - I have had no desire to read anyone else's thoughts on the film either. Not because it isn't worth the time or effort. Au contraire, it's occupied my mind completely since I watched it, its images etched in my memory and its words sweetly whispering in my ears like music. But this is a joyous feeling that I quite like to keep undisturbed from critical scrutiny.

Tabu is separated into two episodes, completely different in tone and narrative form. The first - a look at a curious relationship between the elderly and wealthy Aurora, her African maid, Santa, and their well-meaning neighbor, Pilar - is formally challenging and thematically absurd. The second - a look at a younger Aurora through the memories of an old lover - is poetically narrated and dreamily shot. Between a story of romance and a critique of White colonialism in Africa, between Lisbon and the hills of African mountains, between sequences of sparse, surrealist storytelling and passages of continuously narrated reveals, director Miguel Gomes finds the perfect sweet spot: enough of everything to give the story depth, but not too much of anything to complicate the darkly comic love story.

Scene after semi-silent scene, shot after resplendent shot, Tabu exhibits more and more of everything I love about cinema as it confidently experiments with the fundaments of the medium. But the startling camera work that signifies so much about each character with the games it plays with light and focus, the effective shift to 16 mm in the second episode of the film, the sonic structure that utilizes ambient noise to perfection, and the beautiful performances that blend so well into the atmosphere should all be experienced first hand. It's a niche item, surely, and one that audiences might find puzzling especially during the first episode; but surrender yourself to it and you'll be lost in an enchanting world of longing and passion, with no easy way out.

Interview: Michel Franco, Director of After Lucia

Over at The Film Experience, I've interviewed Michel Franco, the director of Mexico's foreign language film submission and Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard winner, After Lucia. It's a terrific film, possibly my favourite of the year, and I had a blast talking to this fantastic director. It's definitely a director's film and one of those that grip you and trap you within their world and don't let go when the curtains close. It's a must see, really.

You can read my interview here. Don't forget to chime in with your thoughts!

Is A Spike Lee Comeback In Store?

*This review was originally posted at The Film Experience.

In the late 80s and early 90s, Lee became one of America’s most influential cinematic voices and directed two masterpieces that remain among his very best work to this day: Do The Right Thing and Malcolm X. But I think it’s fair to say that none of his recent films, at least since the 2006 double punch of When the Levees Broke and The Inside Man, have been able to enter public conversation or the awards race. Fiction projects like Miracle at St. Anna were coolly received and documentaries like If God is Willing... didn’t make a dent either.

He's on my mind after watching his Michael Jackson documentary Bad 25 and for the first time in a while I felt like he was on to something special. The film, which originally screened out of competition in Venice, is quite different from the other nonfiction entries in Lee’s oeuvre and it isn’t particularly innovative in its construction. A song by song breakdown of Jackson’s follow-up to his record-breaking Thriller, Bad 25 is effectively a straightforward examination of the production of the 1987 album through exhaustive research and interviews with several key collaborators with the King of Pop. But the collection of these extremely entertaining memories tell a different tale about Michael Jackson, and one that is sadly overshadowed these days by the events of his later life.

Lee, who knew Jackson personally and directed music videos for him, doesn’t attempt to address any of the controversies that surrounded the singer’s life. His celebrity is of course a prominent feature and it’s impossible to overlook given that Bad was produced at the height of his and the genre’s popularity. Jackson himself was obsessed with the idea of repeating Thriller’s success and that was a central aspect of Bad’s formation. But Lee wants to revisit an artist’s work, not his personal life and he does so with diligence, delving into his creative process and referencing tabloid myths and legends only sporadically and when they are discussed by Jackson himself. The creative process, like that of any other great artist, is absolutely fascinating to watch; and it’s interesting to get this amount of exposure to his methods through his peers.

My favourite part of the film is the interview and accompanying archival footage about that famous Bad music video. Partly because as a film fan I lament the fact that I didn’t live through the golden age of music videos and partly because Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker (director and editor of the video, respectively) make a great interviewee duo, I was entirely immersed their collaboration with the singer. Jackson referred to his videos as films and the Bad's production was treated as such, with a character-driven story and elaborate set pieces. That Bad also marks the acting debut of an exuberant Wesley Snipes is the icing on the story’s cake.

If I hesitate to call Bad 25 Lee’s return to form because his role as the director is incredibly understated here. His personality, so often at the foreground in his nonfiction work, has taken a backseat. This is a film about Michael Jackson and he’s content not to interfere. Then again, that’s exactly the stuff great directors are made of. They know when and how much their voice needs to be heard. Lee understands the magnitude of Jackson’s star and he’s happy to let it shine.

Unholy thoughts on Holy Motors

If I’m being honest, I didn’t like Holy Motors as much as everybody else seems to. It’s not a film that can be dismissed easily, but it’s frustrating how adamant it is in undermining itself, always remaining one step behind its ideas and never quite achieving what its visionary facade promises. I enjoyed watching it quite a lot, but feel like I left the film empty-handed; there really isn’t much to mull over. Leos Carax’s film appears very enigmatic on the surface, but is actually very clear about the details of the stories it’s telling, and suffers from their weaknesses and incoherence. It goes so far as to explicitly explain Oscar's occupation and intentions - though his employers or his audience are never revealed - but it never convinces us to care about him or enjoy his work any more than he does. It is disjointed, rather than segmented, in its narrative and this lack of connection from sequence to sequence prevents Motors from making an emotional impact. It’s clearly a deliberate choice to make these episodes wildly different, but a choice that doesn’t pay off in the end.

In Defence of Flawed Filmmaking...

Immediately after Silver Linings Playbook won the audience award at TIFF, an intense backlash started against it by critics who hadn't taken to the film. And the rapid escalation in the number of people who claimed it was a serious contender for Oscars only made matters worse. At the moment, I think Silver Linings Playbook might actually be the most divisive film of the year, even ahead of The Master.

It's an understandable position on the critics' part, as Playbook is by no means a perfect film. In fact, it has enormous flaws in both its conception and execution that would under any other circumstance be incredibly grating. There are moments where one can point to specific decisions in camera work or directing that hurt the film. There can be legitimate complaints about its treatment of mental disorder or its practice of tired romantic comedy tropes. From virtually any angle, this is a film that, on paper, should not work. And yet, it totally does. Because, every now and then, comes along a film that reminds me why I love films in the first place. It reminds me that I watch them to be moved, and to be affected and to live with its characters beyond the two hours I spend in the dark of the theatre. Silver Linings Playbook is that film. Not because I can dissect it and analyze it with what I learnt in university film classes, but because it's honest and moving. Because it can look at itself and like everything about itself without reservation; the loving part and the slutty part and the crazy part. All of it. And I commend it for that.

The beauty of Playbook is in the unpredictable energy of Tiffany's dishonest cries of "he's harrasing me," contained within a performance (by Jennifer Lawrence) that is so at ease with the character's insecurities and her unsubtle sexual allure that it becomes reminiscent of the greatest works of Barbara Stanwyck. The greatest moments in the film aren't the work of a director who creates calculated set-ups, but one who reaches inside his actors and finds their deepest human instincts; like when Dolores gently kisses his son on the forehead, or when the father swells up as he opens up his age-old wounds in the attic, and more often than not, in Pat's confused, heartfelt and sky-blue gazes into our soul. It's a film full of nuanced performances that, under Russell's (problematic but) gutsy direction, breathe a new life into an otherwise generic story with their compassion. Russell may well be the greatest humanist working in American cinema today; a director not with his eyes on the viewfinder but with his heart on his sleeve.

Oscar's Documentary Race Cut to 15 Films

Over at The Film Experience, I've looked at the 15 films that have been shortlisted by the Academy in the documentary category. It's a list that, as usual, leaves off several critically acclaimed titles and proves that the new voting system hasn't really made that big an impact on the race yet. Of my three favourite documentaries this year, The Gatekeepers has made the cut (my review), Queen of Versailles (which I just saw) has not and Stories We Tell (my review) was not eligible. The most endearing surprise is the inclusion of Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb's This is Not a Film, which you may remember was one of the best films of 2011 in my opinion.

You can read my thoughts on the whole list here. And please join in with your comments!

Recent Screening Update

I don't know if you've ever noticed the Recent Screenings icon sidebar to the right, but that's where you can keep track of everything I've watched recently and see my ratings and tweet-length (or slightly longer) reviews. 

Here's a little taste of the updates in the past couple of weeks. 'Tis the season of Oscar films and updates are made frequently, so check back often!

Queen of Versailles (dir. Greenfield)
Sharply edited to maximize the bitter comedy, Queen of Versailles is a treatise on everything that is wrong with our society today, shot through the lens of reality television. (A-)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (dir. Chbosky)
Dodging many high-school drama clichés, but not all; heartfelt at its best moments and a bit cheesy at its worst; Benefits greatly from the director’s familiarity with his own source material and Logan Lerman’s star-making turn. (B)

Brave (dir. Chapman & Andrews)
Pixar lite, sure, but it’s still Pixar lite, which is to say a gorgeously rendered, arresting tale from start to finish. It’s a princess story like you’ve never seen before, as fiery as Merida’s locks. (B)

Smashed (dir. Ponsoldt)
It leaves the supporting characters underexplored but in the process, becomes a showcase for one of the year’s best performances in Winstead’s intimate and vulnerable portrayal of alcoholism. (B+)

Life of Pi (dir. Lee)
Absolutely resplendent painting of the ocean, with all its grace and horror, but otherwise muddled with blatant spirituality and intercut with a distractingly mushy framing device. (C+)

Skyfall (dir. Mendes) (thoughts)
One of the best in the long-standing franchise. Craig charms, Bardem repulses and Dench breaks the heart; the action is tense and the girls are fine but the true star of the show is Roger Deakins’s visionary cinematography. (B+)

Thoughts on Skyfall

*Potential SPOILERS ahead*

Things I liked about Skyfall

- Silva. Sure, it's not new to get the hottest foreign actor of the moment to play the villain in a blockbuster - how long before Matthias Schoenaarts is chasing down the hero in an action film? - but obvious as it is, Bardem is an inspired choice. He was Anton Chigurh for god's sake! His slimey, slithering, bleached blond Silva is more a damaged man holding a bitter grudge than a caricature of a monster like so many previous Bond villains. And Bardem, while maintaining the camp factor, gives Silva depth and personality.

- That scene where Silva shows his deformed face.

- Séverine. I mean, wow that woman is attractive.

- Roger Deakins's cinematography. The master of lighting does one of his best works yet, and anyone who's familiar with his filmography knows just what a standard he's set for himself, so that's quite high praise. He gets to show off in sequences light the neon-lit Shanghai tower or the Macau casino surrounded with dragon lanterns, but it's the subtler moments where his true genius is on display; just look at the colour palette when Bond and M get out of the Aston Martin in the Scottish highlands.

- The character driven screenplay: In theory, world domination sounds like a mightier order than getting revenge from your old boss. In practice, personal revenge keeps Skyfall grounded and makes the characters more relateable. The story feels so fresh that the usual clichés can be forgiven.

Things I didn't like about Skyfall

- Eve. She definitely won't go down in history books as one of Bond's most memorable girls. That's not to take anything away from Naomie Harris who actually shines whenever she's on the screen but it's the script that undermines her character. There's really just not enough to her, even though there's obviously potential. I guess a Bond film can't have two female characters pulling the focus and this one chose to put M front and centre.

- The title sequence, which is one of the most exciting trademarks of the franchise, was too fake (in the computer animated sense of the word) and aimless to live up to the song that was attuned to it.

Hitchcock

Grade: B-

My first thought upon hearing that there was a double bill of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and Sacha Gervasi's Hitchcock going on in Toronto last night was that it was a disastrous idea. Psycho is in the highest echelon of cinema's greatest and very few films can live up to its level of quality. Sight unseen, a biopic by a first time director at the helm doesn't promise to be one of those films. And having now seen Hitchcock, it is clear that it does not, indeed, come anywhere close to Psycho's cinematic mastery. But the organizers' decision to show the films back to back has to be commended. In retrospect, the double bill might be reason I enjoyed Hitchcock so much. It isn't a perfect film by any means - or even a great film, for that matter - but it works as a sort of unclenching of the fists and letting out a sigh of relief after two suspenseful hours spent in Bates Motel.

Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) is just coming off the successful release of North by Northwest when Gervasi's eponymous film opens, but he doesn't get to revel in the spotlight for long. As a reporter reminds him that he's in the twilight of his career despite his recent success, Hitchcock becomes determined to tackle a project that gets his creative juices flowing, something fresh and different. Countless number of projects are on offer but he rejects all of them in favour of adapting Psycho, a gory slasher book by Robert Bloch based on the true story of murders by Ed Gein. Initially, the idea sounds ludicrous to everyone around him but this reaction coupled with Paramount's decision to reject financing the film only urges him further to get the project off the ground. His ever supportive wife, Alma Reville (Helen Mirren), is right by his side as they decide to finance the film out of pocket and risk losing their home.

Interview: Steve James

Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing one of my favourite directors, documentary filmmaker Steve James. He's been a staple of America's documentary scene since his breakout 90s masterpiece Hoop Dreams and I've been a fan of his work as long as I can remember.

I chatted with him about his newest film, Head Games, which is about the prevalence of concussion in contact sports. The premise doesn't suggest as much, but it was incredibly moving and almost frightening in some of its revelations. We also talked a little bit about the new voting structure of the documentary branch of the Academy and his future film, Life Itself, which will be based on Roger Ebert's biography.

The interview is posted here at The Film Exprience and my latest Oscar predictions in the Documentary category are here.

Stories We Tell

Grade: A-

There’s a moment late in Stories We Tell, Sarah Polley’s newest film and her first documentary, where Michael, her father, is confronted with the film’s big reveal. He gazes absent-mindedly at her daughter behind the camera, then at the window by his side, and then goes on to say in voiceover narration that he froze upon hearing the news “as he imagines Sarah had when she first heard it.” He’s unaware that the audience has already seen Sarah’s reaction to the same reveal a few scenes earlier. Sarah is anything but frozen. Surprised, sure, but not frozen at all. She is, or at least looks to be, genuinely relieved and happy about it. And she confirms our intuition about her feelings when she later admits that she was filled with joy that she had finally uncovered that secret. That, in essence, is why I’ve fallen so madly in love with her new film. It’s been a few days since I watched it and my mind keeps racing back to it at every chance, remembering every precious little moment.

Stories We Tell is centred on Diane, Sarah’s late mother, who was a theatre and television personality in Canada back in her day. Though “centering” is probably not the correct term. She is the focal point of the titular stories, but there’s nothing cyclical or circular about the way the narrative unfolds. As the title suggests, the structure is formed through interviews with family members and acquaintances who share their recollections of Diane. Polley’s more or less aware of the full scope of her story when she embarks on the adventure to make this film, but instead of telling us her story, she asks everyone involved – her two sisters, two brothers, father Michael (who also narrates the film through a piece he has written about his life with his wife), her mother’s friends and co-stars in a Montreal theatre production – to tell her everything about Diane as if she never knew her at all. From the resulting interviews, she peels back layers of information in ways so surprising that we’re kept guessing till the very last frame.

The strength of the film, however, lies not in the surprises – though there are plenty and they are deliciously scandalous – but precisely in the manner in which Polley tells the story. There are tales of romance, passion, ennui, infidelity and such in every family. It’s in the way Polley presents them to us that gives them warmth and depth. It is the way she forces us to rethink our perceptions of ourselves and our family members that make the film a special delight. Stories We Tell shows us that even those closest to us can often act radically different from what we expect of them and can have big secrets stored in their heart for an entire lifetime without letting anything slide; even when those secrets matter more to us than themselves. This film isn’t so much about the characters but the way they are formed through others’ words, perceptions and misconceptions about them.

Technically, too, Stories is an impressive accomplishment. Mike Munn’s work in the cutting room is crucial to the film’s tone as everything boils down to the order of interviews and the setup of the reveals, and his crisp editing does a great job of bringing everything neatly together. Polley has carefully recreated her mother’s theatre stint in Montreal and manages to integrate the washed out visuals of those sequences seamlessly in the intimately photographed reconstructions of the present time and the interviews. In transferring her bright, gracefully soft aesthetic and her repetitious but sparse approach to storytelling from fiction to documentary, Polley proves herself as one of the most interesting, unique voices in today’s cinema; a filmmaker whose every effort, even if flawed, is incredibly rewarding.

Frances Ha

Grade: A

*A shorter version of this review was posted on The Film Experience during TIFF12.

Noah Baumbach’s exquisite Frances Ha was the brightest light of this year's Toronto International Film Festival. This is the filmmaker's funniest, most refined and personal work. Developed by himself and Greta Gerwig after the couple worked together on Greenberg, the film is about the 27-year-old Frances (Gerwig) who has yet to find her direction in her professional or personal life. She shares an apartment with her friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner) and works part time for a dance company, hoping to join on a permanent basis.

The film opens with rapid-fire banter between the two friends and despite it being genuinely hilarious, it immediately worries the audience that it might be too self-conscious. But the tone changes after Sophie, during a particularly well-constructed sequence on the New York subway, informs Frances of her intention to leave their apartment and move in with a boyfriend. Confronted with the prospect of loneliness and the lack of financial means to pay for the rent on her own, Frances is launched into a series of misfired attempts at detaching herself from Sophie and refocusing her life.

Argo

Grade: B

As you probably know if you have come across this space before, I’ve been anxious to see Argo for a very, very long time. This is partly because of Affleck’s two previous films, his growing stature as a capable director of adult dramas, and constant chatter about Argo being one of the frontrunners for this year’s Oscar race since its Telluride-Toronto premiere. But more importantly, as I’ve detailed here, I was dreading the film as an Iranian.

For the progressives in my generation, the attack on the American embassy remains one of the darkest, most indefensible moments of our history. Hearing about these events being prepared for a silver screen treatment in a major Hollywood film - no matter how smart and sensitive the talent behind it - automatically made me suspicious that the potential portrayal of some Americans as patriotic heroes and others as victims would inevitably lead to the vilification of Iranians. Irrespective of my personal and political opinion on the matter – the attack on the embassy is an absolute travesty; there’s no way around it – this is just one of those things I wish no one would ever care enough to make a film about. But alas, there is a film, and a very high-profile one at that. Having now watched it though, I’m equally surprised, disappointed and relieved about how politically toothless it is. Not that Argo is a bad film. It isn’t, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it takes the complicated story of one of the most defining chapters in the relationship between the U.S. and the Middle East and uses it as backdrop for a thriller – a superbly crafted, intensely exciting thriller – that doesn’t explore the rich world of potential at its disposal.