"The Constant Gardener": A Movie Review.

Marh 14, 2011 at 12:45 P.M. Efforts to see "Justified" on free on-demand television were unsuccessful this morning because of interference with my signal. Probably just a coincidence.

March 8, 2011 at 3:05 P.M. From a public computer: "Errors" inserted since this morning will now be corrected.

March 8, 2011 at 9:05 A.M. Spacing and other "errors" inserted overnight will now be corrected. 

My free on-demand feature still cannot be used due to a screen icon that reads: "ERROR 35." ("How censorship works in America" and "More Censorship and Cybercrime.")

March 7, 2011 at 3:08 P.M. "Errors" inserted since this morning will now be corrected. Perhaps the United States of America is unable to prevent people from inserting these "errors" in my writings.

"The Constant Gardener" (2005). Ralph Fiennes (Justin); Rachel Weisz (Tessa); Danny Huston (Sandy); Bill Nighy (Oscar! Sir Bernard Pellegrin); Screenwriter; Jeffrey Caine; Director Fernando Meirelles.

John Le Carre, The Constant Gardener (New York: Scribner, 2001).

John Le Carre, "The US Has Gone Mad," in B. Eno, et als., Not One More Death (New York & London: Verso, 2006).

"The Constant Gardener: Screenplay by Jeffrey Caine, Based on the Novel by John Le Carre" Foreword by John Le Carre and Introduction by Kenneth Turan (New York: Newmarket Press, 2006).

"I feel safe with you."

I am a devoted reader of John Le Carre's fiction. Like Scott Turow, Mr. Le Carre depicts a world of ambiguities and mixed-motives with few heros and much pointless cruelty and suffering. There is weariness and stoicism as well as idealism and romanticism in his works. All of these elements are transferred to the screen in "The Constant Gardener" which must be one of the best serious films -- a film that is, nevertheless, highly entertaining -- made during the first decade of the new century.

If "The Constant Gardener" and a few other movies -- like "The Reader" -- are any indication, we may expect a great period for movies at the dawn of a new era in global media culture. ("'The Reader': A Movie Review.")

Jeffrey Caine -- any relation to Michael Caine? -- has provided viewers with a nearly flawless script which captures the original story and themes while remaining Mr. Caine's work.

The story concerns a middle-level British diplomat who learns of his wife's gruesome murder and of the disappearance of a man, an African physician, whose role in the drama is unclear at the outset (a point that is more telling in the novel), and whose symbolic importance grows as the plot unfolds for movie audiences.

Justin Quayle is yet another of Mr. Fiennes' utterly-English characters at once undone and "realized" through emotional awakening and tragedy. There is something about deep emotion that is liberating to English men (more than the rest of us) as well as potentially devastating. Safety is found in regular habits, neatness, unwillingness to cause offense, and a nice cup of tea -- or gardening perhaps. ("Stephen Hawkins' Free Will is Determined.")

It is his safety that is questioned and destroyed by trauma and suffering breaking Justin out of the shelter of his constructed identity and comfortable Englishness. Justin will learn what C.S. Peirce suggested that "your neighbors are, in a measure, yourself ... and in a far greater measure than, without deep studies in psychology, you would believe."

Justin's bildungsroman is concerned precisely with recognizing all that is so profoundly offensive in the "nice" world of which he is a part.

The novel and movie describe a character's journey of discovery concerning the meaning of his life -- a life that is transformed into a story of romantic love and moral struggle even as he "finds" the woman he has already lost when the story begins.

Many of us have been forced to see that our comforts and "niceness," trips to literal and figurative Disneyworlds, have been purchased with the suffering and (sometimes) the lives of people in other places and circumstances. Americans are complicit with the evils that we wish to see transformed or remedied in our country and the world. For Justin, finding Tessa is also finding himself.

Africa is another character in this drama, beautiful and haunting because "she" is so tragic a figure in all of our lives today. Africa's tragedy resulting from the AIDS epidemic and unequal distribution of assets is a global catastrophe.

Tessa is subjected to all the vicious rumors concerning sex and race, pushiness and unpleasantness -- the opposite of "niceness" -- that intense and original women evoke in others who are made uncomfortable by their power, often erotic power. Tessa is deemed a "resident harlot" or "whore" to be controlled by the embassy if not by "her man." (Is Thomas Hardy's tragedy a reference?)

Kate Winslet, Jane Fonda, Angela Davis, even Rachel Weisz, or women whose sexuality is their currency -- like Carmen Luvana or Violante Placido -- have been described in terms that are shockingly offensive for reasons that baffled me until I saw this movie. Now I get it: It's about envy. Perhaps this envy is part of the reason for continuing insertions of "errors" in these writings. ("Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!" and "The Private Eye.")

Extreme language that is rarely used to describe monsters of criminality or dictators is reserved in our culture for highly sexual and strong women whose presence is both desired and hated.

Ms. Weisz creates a Tessa that infuriates and seduces in equal measure whose persona is especially ambiguous to women in the audience. Beautiful women immediately inspire the hatred of a few of the "ladies" in the audience simply by virtue of that beauty.

Tosca, I suspect that this is part of your troubles in life: A woman both hates and desires you -- maybe we have that experience in common. ("The Art of Melanie Griffith" and "Good Will Humping.")

Power in women is still frightening to American audiences, especially when this power flows from intelligence combined with beauty or eroticism. Women endowed with such gifts inspire the envy of the gods -- or at least of housewives from Stepford, Connecticut and Ridgewood, New Jersey. ("'The Stepford Wives': A Movie Review" and "'Revolutionary Road': A Movie Review.")

"We cannot involve ourselves in this way."

At a lecture delivered by Mr. Quayle on behalf of his superior in the foreign service, Sir Bernard Pellegrin, Justin is questioned, sharply and rudely, by a young woman who will not settle for British politeness and evasion.

The young woman is Tessa, a barrister, activist, politically-engaged heiress who wishes to see Africa.

The two "characters" fall into a passionate relationship.

Tessa's love for Justin is real as is her devotion to justice. "Take me to Africa," she says. Justin explains that he can only do so if she becomes his wife. This is what Justin secretly desires: Tessa's presence in his life. Tessa's concern with justice is almost unheard of for any person who studies law -- like David Cameron at Cambridge University reading law as opposed to political philosophy focusing on social justice questions in order to enter Brititish government service -- perhaps only to forget his interest in justice. Tessa will become Mrs. Quayle.

Many of the pleasures of both novel and film result from Mr. Le Carre's pitting of his (masculine) pessimism, bordering on cynical despair, against his (feminine) idealism and romanticism about humanity and morality. ("Master and Commander.")

" ... he feared her faith because, as a fully paid-up pessimist, he knew he had none. Not in human nature, not in God, not in the future, and certainly not in the universal power of love. Man was vile and evermore would be so. The world contained a small number of reasonable souls of whom Justin happened to be one. Their job, in his simple view, was to head off the human race from its worst excesses -- with the proviso that when two sides were determined to blow each other to smithereens, there was precious little a reasonable person could do about it, however ruthless he might be in his efforts to stave off ruthlessness. In the end, the master of lofty nihilism told himself, all civilized men are Canutes these days, and the tide is coming in faster all the time. It was therefore doubly unfortunate that Justin, who regarded any form of idealism with the deepest skepticism, should fall for a woman who, though delightfully uninhibited in many ways, was unable to cross the road without first taking a moral view. Escape was the only sensible recourse."

John Le Carre, The Constant Gardener, p. 133. ("Drawing Room Comedy: A Philosophical Essay in the Form of a Film Script" and "David Hume's Philosophical Romance.")

"Sensible" is a word that may have resonances that can only be fully appreciated by British foreign service-types and elderly dons at Oxford or Cambridge Universities. "Escape" is every man's first response to real love. Loving a fascinating and politically-committed woman is rarely "sensible" or safe. Indeed, loving any human being is dangerous to one's complacency or emotional safety. ("'Brideshead Revisited': A Movie Review.")

Tessa's provocative advocacy gets Justin noticed in an unpleasant way that is damaging to his career. ("If you can't control her, you should keep her locked up!")

Many men keep "their" women "locked up." Justin refuses to do such a thing. "Call we these delicate creatures ours, but not their appetites!"

Justin is the person "liberated" by Tessa from the shelter of his garden through his appreciation of her lesson that the lives of others must be part of their life together. This insight concerning continuities in the lives of all persons is the deepest wisdom of the film.

A woman "belongs" to a man only when she is free and belongs to herself; a man belongs to a woman only when he respects her equality and freedom. This is how we "belong" to one another. (Again: "Drawing Room Comedy: A Philosophical Essay in the Form of a Film Script.")

"I love you for who you are," Tessa says.

Justin will learn to love Tessa for who she "was" in order to "become the man he is" at the cost of his career and life. Justin's choice is love and pain over safety and comfort. It is certainly the choice that I wish to make in my life, every day, loving over safety or comfort. ("The Soldier and the Ballerina.")

At one point in the story, Tessa wishes to help some Africans on the road. Justin explains that there are millions who need help in Africa. He says: "We cannot involve ourselves in that way."

Tessa responds that "these are two people we can help."

Justin will repeat Tessa's words for audience members later in the drama, when he is forced to leave a child in a dangerous wilderness: "This is one child we can help."

Justin is asked at the morgue: "Do you know this woman?"

Justin says: "She was my wife."

Sandy, the consummate hypocrite and diplomat -- this description is usually a redundancy -- is overwhelmed by emotion during this scene. The same man who has tried to arrange sexual intercourse with Tessa (betraying his wife Gloria and his friend Justin) is overcome with "concern" for the murdered Tessa whose demise Sandy has helped to bring about. ("Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" then "Is Senator Bob 'For' Human Rights?")

Gloria is very likely doing the same with her friends in her busy social circle, that is, engaging in adultery and arranging parties for the weekends. They are "lovely people," Sandy and Gloria. ("More Trouble for Ridgewood, New Jersey.")

Sandy, who is undisturbed by the lies he is asked to tell or truths he is instructed not to see, and who appears totally satisfied with his moral status will be rewarded with the position of Head of Consulate at the conclusion of the story. Ironies abound in this movie and in the British Foreign Office. ("Stuart Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "No More Cover-Ups and Lies, Chief Justice Rabner!")

Sir Bernard Pellegrin is portrayed at the level of genius by one of the truly great British actors today, Bill Nighy (who deserves an Oscar for this role), embodying what Sartre describes as "bad faith." Enjoying the upper reaches of power in the British Secret Service or Foreign Office, along with his exquisite dinners and excellent wines, Sir Bernard has no problems of conscience since it is all, as he explains, a matter of "deniability." ("What is education for?")

Compare Philippe Sands, Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values (London: MacMillan, 2009) with Joy Gordon, Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010). (American officials continue to call for freedom of speech on-line as daily violations of copyright and free speech rights are on display at these blogs thanks to the corruption in New Jersey's political and legal circles.)

Not only will Sir Bernard never know any woman truly, but I doubt that he will know himself -- perhaps, as we encounter him in this narrative, there is no longer a "self" for Sir Bernard to discover as opposed to a "role" performed to his own certain and eternal applause.

One wonders whether Mr. Nighy based this character on actors or politicians (Mr. Blair?) he has known or met:

PELLEGRIN: " ... If we have lost in Justin and Tessa two valued friends, the diplomatic community has lost a true gentleman -- courteous, self-effacing, large of heart. That he chose to take his life in the same remote spot where Tessa met her tragic death is a sad reflection of his tormented state of mind, but also typical of his discretion." -- Discretion being the ultimate term of praise for such a man! -- "He would not have had us inconvenienced. 'Nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it.' ..."

Jeffrey Caine, "The Secret Gardener," sc. 134.

Seconds after these words are uttered on screen we learn exactly to what extent they are absolute and total bullshit. Discretion should be understood to mean "hypocrisy." ("On Bullshit" and "Senator Bob Loves Xanadu!")

"You can learn me."

Justin "learns" Tessa. Arnold is not Tessa's lover. Arnold is a gay man in a society that criminalizes homosexuality and destroys homosexuals. Accordingly, it is not Tessa -- the white European woman -- who symbolizes Africa, but Arnold, the gay African physician appalled by the exploitation of his continent and its people through the new economic colonialism and slavery imposed on Africa by multinational corporations.

The sources for this tale become explicitly literary with references to Evelyn Waugh and Joseph Conrad offered with a light but savage irony. Black Mischief is on display in this movie as we enter into The Heart of Darkness.

Millions are transformed into experimental animals for the benefit of pharmaceutical companies that buy and continue to pay for American political protection to test their drugs in the Third World, often killing or maiming many people in the process of "improving" the health of rich whites in First World countries. Gardiner Harris, "Talk Doesn't Pay, So Psychiatry Turns Instead to Drug Therapy," in The New York Times, March 6, 2011, at p. A1. ("The Experiments in Guatemala" and "John Rawls and Justice.")

Similarly, New Jersey experiments on inmates or subhumans (like me) by developing, secretly, "technologies of social control" that are useful in advertising or governmental efforts at "managing" public opinion and dissent in society.

Has another letter been altered or removed from this text? I suspect that Assata Shakur was subjected to such experiments in New Jersey. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "What is it like to be tortured?")

Justin learns that his mission was to enable these horrors to take place and then not to notice what he had become. Justin's calling to tend his garden, mind his own business, play it safe, be normal -- all of this is destroyed in the furnace of one woman's passionate authenticity and love: "I love you as you are."

Like Voltaire's "Candide," Justin is an innocent forced to earn a hard wisdom and woman's grace in response to evil.

But who exactly is Justin Quayle?

Justin must be the man worthy of the love that he receives from Tessa. At the conclusion of this journey, Justin realizes that Tessa was and always will be "with" him. "Being with" Tessa amounts to being Justin. (Simone Weil, Simone de Beauvoir, R.D. Laing.)

Justin understands how he must answer the question asked of him before a charred corpse: "Do you know this woman?"

A man will "know," at most, one or two women -- as wives or lovers -- in a lifetime. It is only when Justin "knows" Tessa in all of her complexity and mystery that he can say, truthfully: "Yes, I know this woman. She is my wife."

"She was sitting beside him, but for once she had no answer ready. I am thinking about your courage, he replied for her. I am thinking, it was you and Arnold against all of this, while dear old Justin worried about keeping his flower beds sandy enough to grow your yellow fresias. I am thinking I don't believe in me anymore, and all I stood for. That there was a time when, like the people in this building, [the Foreign Office,] your Justin took pride in submitting himself to the harsher judgments of a collective will -- which he happened to call Country, or the Decline of the Reasonable Man or, with some misgiving, the Higher Cause. There was a time when I believed it was expedient that one man -- or woman -- should die for the benefit of many. I called it sacrifice, or duty, or necessity. There was a time when I could stand outside the Foreign Office at night and stare up at its lighted windows and think: Good evening, it's me your humble servant, Justin. I'm a piece of the great wise engine, and proud of it. I serve, therefore I feel. Whereas all I feel now is: it was you against the whole pack of them and, unsurprisingly, they won."

The Constant Gardener, pp. 346-347.

As the film ends, the narrative becomes a hermeneutic circle.

Justin's "home coming" is finding Tessa within his soul. This discovery of the woman he loves liberates one man from all that is false in him, even as Justin's murderers approach him, unaware that he has arranged for the justice that Tessa earned through her willing self-sacrifice. Justin loves; therefore he is.

Justice is achieved for his love, Tessa, by the aptly-named "Justin" who is the "quayle" used by hunters to draw out dangerous game in Africa:

SCENE: 123. EXT. LAKESIDE PRE-DUSK

The lake is magical in this light: its colours [sic.] muted pastels in perfect harmony one with another, its music the call of water fowl. Impossible to believe -- in such country, in such a light -- that any soul on earth might harbour malice.

DISCOVER JUSTIN sitting on a rock, eyes closed, the pistol resting beside him. As his eyes open ...

DISCOVER TESSA next to him. He reaches out to her. It's as though Justin knows he has come home. He draws her close. She rests her head upon his shoulder.

JUSTIN: "Now I know all your secrets. Now I understand you. (pause) And now you'll want me to go home. (a smile) I am home. (pause) They cheapened your death, made it a tabloid scandal. They can't do that twice. Yes, I know what they did to Arnold ... (places hand on gun) They won't get that chance with me."

Jeffrey Caine, "The Constant Gardener," sc. 123.