A United Nations interpreter, Silvia Bloome (Nicole Kidman) accidentally overhears part of a plot to assasinate the leader of Matobo, a fictitious African country, when he will be giving a speech to the General Assembly of the UN in a few days. She is discovered by the would-be assassins and becomes the center of a frenzied attempt to discover who is behind the plot, which also seems somehow directly related to uncovering the truth about her past.
Leading the chase is Tobin Keller (Sean Penn), a Secret Service agent whose estranged wife was recently killed in an automobile accident. Keller and his team quickly learn that the target of the assassination attempt, Edmond Zuwanie (Earl Cameron), formerly regarded as a heroic leader of his nation's struggle for independence, has turned to political repression and mass killings to maintain a stranglehold on power, using the claim that his political enemies are terrorists as cover.
The Interpreter
Director:
Sydney Pollack
Writers:
Martin Stellman
Brian Ward
Cast:
Nicole Kidman .... Silvia Broome
Sean Penn .... Tobin Keller
Earl Cameron .... Zuwanie
George Harris .... Kuman-Kuman
Michael Wright .... Marcus
Curtiss Cook .... Ajene Xola
The leaders of Zuwanie's political opposition are a pro-capitalist exile living in Brooklyn, Kuman-Kuman (George Harris) and a socialist who leads a rebel party in Matobo, Ajene Xola (Curtiss Cook). Both factions are implicated in the plot to kill Zuwanie, but Sydney Pollack's skill as a storyteller will leave you guessing at the truth until it is revealed in the final scenes.
This film is an effort to shift the axis of political conflict from ideology to an examination of the personal and the human elements of political violence, an element of the film that will leave ideologues from most of the political spectrum disappointed. The effort is valuable, however, as the thrust of the film is not to blame any particular ideological viewpoint for violence, but to examine closely human motivations for it. A basic premise is that there are some people and groups greedy for power who kill and others who kill for revenge.
It must be added that this shift in emphasis doesn't exclude the importance of resistance to oppression, or downplay the need for national liberation or class struggle against exploitation. The focus, however, is on means and end. Can there be justice when violence and hate are at the core of the struggle?
In the initial scenes we learn that Silvia has left the business of killing for revenge behind as it contradicts her beliefs in peaceful dialogue and diplomacy to settle disputes. This conviction has led her to work at the UN as it is the one place where alternatives to war and violence have a chance to be found.
In an exchange with Keller, Bloome argues that forgiveness of one's enemy for even the worst deeds is the basis of ending grief, negating the endless brutalty that vengeance intiates, and for maintaining one's humanity. "Vengeance is the a lazy form of grief," she concludes. Keller, still in the depths of grief for his dead wife, has to learn the full truth of this concept for himself. A key element of this film provokes serious thought about the viability of non-violence, both in resistance to oppression and as solutions to disputes and crisis.
Silvia's discussion of non-violence is particularly timely given the Bush administration's use of the violence and grief of terrorism to start its own wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and to violate international laws against torture. To get its war, the administration had to make the UN appear irrelevant. Bush accomplished this by sidestepping and undermining the procedures of international dispute settlement the world community of nations has entrusted to the UN, which the US helped found after the global misery of World War II.
Also of contemporary relevance is the call in the story by the international community to bring Zuwanie to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for mass killings and ethnic cleansing. We learn that the US delegation describes this particular situation as a "perdicament" because the administration refuses to recognize the validity of the ICC, but can't appear to be defending someone universally recognized as a mass murderer.
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Just weeks ago, in real life, the US abstained from voting on a UN Security Council resolution to refer to the ICC allegations of ethnic cleansing and mass killings by government-backed militia in the Sudan. The administration preferred to try to weaken the authority of the court rather than ensure that justice for the as many as 400,000 people killed in the Sudan could be found.
The film's slaps at the unilateralism and inherently violent policies of the US administration aren't the centerpiece of the film, however. This film is a thoughtful and fast-paced political thriller that will keep you in your seat.
But at its heart, this film is about learning to distinguish between vengeance and justice. While the desire for vengeance is a real human emotional response to grief, the act itself is too often a key part of the cycle of violence, terror, and death that prevents us from achieving justice.
Justice, on the other hand, has at its heart, forgiveness and reconciliation, equally real and valid human responses to grief. This view of justice does not mean that criminals remain unpunished, but that our morality, dignity, humanity along with peace remain possible. Cycles of violence are made inevitable by human action, they aren't inherently so.
--Clara West can be reached at pa-letters@politicalaffairs.net.
