"The Edukators" is a heist movie in which nothing is stolen. "Dirty Pretty Things" is a parable about thievery in which the hero refuses to sell his soul. Both films are paeans to idealism, and in both the protagonists commit horrible deeds that the films portray as heroic.
Both films also come from across the pond, "The Edukators" from Germany and "Dirty Pretty Things" from England - and their anti-capitalist leanings are strident without ever edging into Lars von Trier territory. "The Edukators" makes its point more forcefully, and bluntly, than "Dirty Pretty Things," and becomes much more powerful in the bargain.
In "The Edukators," angry young men Jan (Daniel Bruhl) and Peter (Stipe Erceg) transform their socialist fever into perverse performance art: Their anti-capitalist protests involve breaking into the homes of the obscenely rich, rearranging their furniture into surreal shapes and leaving a threatening note, their favorite being "Your days of plenty are numbered." Their break-ins are horrifying to the victims - far more so than if they had been mere robberies. It is one thing to threaten one's earthly goods, it's another thing to threaten one's entire worldview.
Jan and Peter are naive enough to think that they are initiating a societal shift - they proudly recite newspaper stories about their attacks - but wise enough to know that greater action is needed. Jan has bigger plans for change - his nonviolent terrorism aimed at the entertainment structure of all Europe.
But Jan's bizarre plans, and his friendship with Peter, are in danger. Jan is falling in love with Peter's girlfriend Jule, and while Peter is out of town, the pair executes an impromptu invasion of the home of the industrialist (Burghart Klausner) to whom Jule owes an immeasurable financial debt. Revenge is sweet, but, as in all heist movies, the pair makes a crucial mistake - one that leads to the kidnapping of the industrialist, who is far more complex than he appears.
"The Edukators" is a brilliantly, beautifully filmed drama whose visuals perfectly match its themes of rebellion and lost innocence; Scorcese (the Scorcese of 2007, that is) could take lessons from Weingartner, who pulls off seamless virtuosity without making his shots look like overplanned paintings. The actors move with fluidity and grace, and the love triangle, which is almost impossible to pull off these days, is pitch-perfect. Even Klausner's uber-capitalist contains multitudes: In his youth he too was a socialist rebel, and he admits that he once wished to take down someone like himself.
The ambition of the “The Edukators” is breathtaking, and though its overwrought ending veers toward self-parody, the ship is righted before the final curtain falls. Weingartner has created a near-masterpiece that flexes both brawn and brain, and challenges our assumptions of terrorism, class warfare and the possibilities for social change.
"Dirty Pretty Things" contains a more subdued form of liberalism; its noble hero Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is an immigrant from Lagos who, in a former life, studied medicine in the United States, then was forced to escape to Britain. Okwe hides from authorities while juggling two jobs, one as a cab driver, another as a hotel porter - all in service of gaining the passport that will allow him to escape his life and return to normalcy.
Enter Senay (Audrey Tautou of "Amelie"), a Turkish expatriate who works with Okwe as a maid at the upscale Baltic Hotel, and who is doggedly pursued by Immigration, to the point where she must go from job to job in order to hide her employment (ridiculous bureaucratic rules provide a recurring theme in the film). Senay allows Okwe to sleep on her couch, and, in exchange, Okwe offers her something tangible to hold onto - a rock of humanity in her decidedly ugly world.
Okwe discovers that the scuzzy hotel manager (Sergi Lopez) is operating a black-market scheme that Okwe refuses to get involved in, although it will save the increasingly desperate Senay. His hesitance to break the law, which stems both from an inherent decency and the ghosts of his haunted past, provides the tenuous pivot on which the movie rests.
While technically an independent film, "Dirty Pretty Things" uses a classic Hollywood platform; The villains are loathsome, the heroes are gallant and the acting is impeccable. Ejiofor is a revelation, his huge, expressive eyes saying a thousand words in every scene, and Tautou, though stuck with an uneven "ethnic" accent (she sounds more like Borat than a native Turk), matches her partner motion for motion; these two share a fine, distant chemistry that manages to cross racial, educational and sexual barriers.
The bigger problem is one that has dogged Frears throughout his career: His insistence on needless glitz and flash. Like “The Grifters,” this is a down-and-dirty story, but he shoots it like a commercial for fine wine. Everything is held neatly in place; even the hotel garage appears to have been designed specifically to store Mercedes sedans. The sumptuous visuals are in the wrong movie - Frears is trying to portray Britain’s vicious underbelly, but he never gets down and dirty; even the assault scenes possess a chilling, surface beauty. He has made a movie for a middle-class audience that wants to pity the impoverished without actually feeling their pain.
And there is a price to be trying to please everybody. The ending is tidy beyond belief, and is entirely driven by director Stephen Frears’s need to reward good and punish evil. It doesn't twist the moral and ethical knife the way a good thriller should. It’s a cheat, a dead-end to a movie that promised far stronger ethical and moral conflicts.
In the end, idealism is not served by either "The Edukators" or "Dirty Pretty Things." In the former, the terrorist actions of Jan and Peter are a natural outflow of their characters; in the latter, the betrayal is a plot device meant to satisfy an audience that desperately wants revenge. "The Edukators" is the superior film, though "Dirty Pretty Things" is not without its own bourgeois charms. Jan and Peter would not be pleased by Frears's approach, but they would undoubtedly be excited by the possibilities: This, they would think, is a baby step toward the revolution.
Ratings:
The Edukators: ****
Dirty Pretty Things: ***
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1 comment:
I like this point:
"He has made a movie for a middle-class audience that wants to pity the impoverished without actually feeling their pain."
But isn't this also the problem with most movies that want to delve into the difficulties of immigrant life or the lives of the undocumented? We want a feel good narrative where things that are decidedly unpalatable (such as living conditions for undocumenteds who keep the economy going) have to be rendered palatable?
Like most, I think I wanted to like this film more than I ought to have liked it precisely for the reasons you identify. Their is a nice gloss put over some rather unpalatable things--maybe the title sums it up best in some ways. These are 'dirty things' but they have to be rendered 'pretty' for bougie audiences (self included) to feel uplifeted by the woes of the working and under classes.
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