Syriana

Syriana complements but does not overlap with Munich. It’s an ensemble movie of interwoven plots, in the style of Crash, Traffic, Magnolia, and others—though its range of characters is narrower. It focuses on Bob Barnes (George Clooney), a U. S. operative who tends to be something of a maverick; a mid-level financial analyst Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon); Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright), a lawyer investigating corruption in two oil companies seeking to merge; and two young Palestinians being courted by radical Islam. In the background are the oil companies and the Arab nation (much like Saudi Arabia) and peoples whose lives and welfare are at issue.

The thesis is that oil companies, nations, and individual whose careers are on the rise are all in bed with each other, that national agendas are being set not by what is right but rather by what is profitable.

The presence of Bob Barnes reminds us that there was once a time when such an arrangement was not in place. He began his career at a time when espionage was based more on issues of national security, and of doing the right thing, than of making money. Or at least he probably likes to believe. Barnes has long hoped to rise in the espionage establishment and is dissatisfied with the state of his career, but there is the clear implication that once upon a time he actually acted on the basis of patriotism, of morality and ethics. Few others in the film do the same.

The unifying link in the film is two brothers who hope when their father dies or retires to become Emir of their sheikdom. The older brother is shallow and corrupt and is clearly willing to do whatever his father and the oil companies and the nations behind them want. The younger brother, Prince Nasir Al-Subaai, well played by Alexander Siddig, is branded a communist and terrorist by the CIA for not wanting to cooperate with the oil companies; he wants instead to build his nation’s economy, prepare for a time when oil will not be in high supply, and in general apply civilized ideas to improve the welfare of his country. The film suggests that such altruistic motives are not the concern of western or middle-eastern governments. When the older brother is chosen Emir, Nasir decides to depose him.

The film explores the efforts of various individuals, governments, companies to support and oppose the two brothers and their objectives.

I liked Syriana, but I had difficulty with its use of fictional nations and companies and issues rather than factual ones. The themes of Syriana directly link to the fictional scenarios it presents. The underlying premises of the film are that oil companies and national governments—specifically the U. S. government, but also Arab governments and other western governments—will bribe, cheat, and kill in order the keep oil flowing from the Middle East to the West. These premises may be true. But in the film they’re grounded in fictional scenarios, albeit scenarios grounded in the factual realities of the present day. The writers of Syriana were able to make these fictional scenarios fit the ideas they wished to convey. We don’t live in a fictional world. We live in a real world, and we have to deal with the real problems the real world presents. People might want to believe in the scenarios and conclusions of Syriana, but they need accuracy and truth rather than fictional assumptions. I would have been more comfortable with a documentary that presented these conclusions using the historical facts that are available. But the film is intelligent and compelling nonetheless.

Clooney is the outstanding actor in the film, as the CIA operative who finds himself displaced and scapegoated when an operation he has been asked to carry out goes awry. Also effective is Chris Cooper as oilman Jimmy Pope, who tells the lawyer investigating corruption in his oil firm, “Dig six feet, find three bodies. But dig twelve feet, you find forty.” But what is remarkable about the film is how strong and well portrayed are all the characters. There is hardly a weak link in the large cast.

Syriana is less willing than Munich to recognize the ambiguities surrounding its subject. Many of the characters are easily identifiable as “good” or “bad.” But there are a significant number of characters who traverse the territory in between. Syriana explores more directly than Munich the idea that governments often sell out their own cherished principles for the sake of expediency and money.

Cinematography in Syriana is excellent. It at first reminded me of the washed out tones of Traffic, but I did realize that because the film largely takes place in the arid middle east, the many shadings and tones of white and brown are not the washed out colors of digital enhancement but the actual colors of the Middle East.

Both Syriana and Munich offer pessimistic views of human nature, of governments, and of global capitalism. But Munich seems to suggest, in an oblique way, that a different approach to foreign policy and to terrorism may bring about better results. Syriana ends in a darker, grimmer way. Bryan Woodman, like Avner, returns to his family, but he goes back because his efforts are defeated—his family is his last resort. In Munich the family is where Avner seeks to start his life over—it is where he wanted and intended to end up from the start of the film. In a general way, their endings may not be much different, but Munich offers a subtle, muted hope for change while in Syriana there is only despair