My third film of the weekend (although I'm writing the review out of sequence) is from Polish writer/director Jerzy Skolimowski and is a pared down political thriller about a prisoner, Mohammad, escaping from his American captors.
Now I like a pared down film, a film that allows you to focus on a few essential ingredients, letting things such as performance and perhaps setting do all the talking. But never have I seen a film of this subject matter quite so distilled. And I'm not so sure it works.
The scene is set with Mohammed* brutally killing three Americans in an unidentified barren desert canyon - presumably Iraq or Afghanistan - for reasons that aren't explained.
He is quickly captured, imprisoned, dressed in the infamous orange jump suit, water-boarded and put on a plane with other prisoners to an unidentified snowy and mountainous country. The truck in which he is subsequently being transported crashes and he escapes. The rest of the film then concentrates on his fight for survival.
Mohammed never says a word throughout the film, indeed what little dialogue there is is largely incidental which at first is affecting as it gives you a sense of the alienation of the protagonist without the distraction of other narratives. But the problem is that you end up becoming detached.
Vincent Gallo does an amazing job of conveying the physical and mental anguish and pain of Mohammed but you know little more of him at the end as you do at the beginning.
Essential Killing certainly stays with you afterwards but more because it perplexes. It is a brave approach to the political thriller especially in that it doesn't patronise its audience with details of the conflict and its rights or wrongs but in doing so becomes a film about survival and for that to work you need to be behind the person who is trying to survive. And I'm not sure I was by the end.
It does succeed in igniting a debate on when or even if killing can be essential and for that it gets a round of applause but overall it feels a little too minimalist for its own good.
Since writing this I've taken a look at Rotten Tomatoes to see what sort of response it's getting and it's interesting that critics are generally positive with an average rating of 81% based on 21 reviews but only 45% of visitors to the site have given it a positive rating. I'm giving it 59% because it is trying a different approach but I didn't like it enough to push it over into what would be four star territory.
* I only know that he is called Mohammed because that is what he is listed as on IMDB as far as I remember his name isn't given in the actual film
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