TIFF - The Whistleblower

Rating: ****

The Whistleblower may not be one of the most talked about films of the Toronto International Film Festival, but it is one of the 2010 Fest’s most compelling. Like a police procedural with an international flavour, the film has the added gravitas of being “ripped from the headlines,” a hook that’s both compelling and repellent. Additionally, The Whistleblower features a first rate performance by Academy Award-winner Rachel Weisz, whose positively brilliant as she trades between frustration and inspiration from beginning to end.

Weisz plays Kathy Bolkovac, a Nebraska cop that takes a job as a private police officer in post-war Bosnia. As one of the few female cops on the force, Bolkovac manages to make progress in small ways in the prosecution of domestic violence against women, a measure that gets her recognized by the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights (Vanessa Redgrave). Under her new responsibilities, Bolkovac finds herself neck deep in the murky world of human trafficking in Bosnia, which has tendrils leading from the pimps to the very people that Bolkovac is working with at the U.N.

This is not surprising, and there really is no mystery for Bolkovac to solve, but what makes The Whistleblower compelling is a matter covered by many stories in the past, how can one person make difference amidst a system hopelessly corrupt. Bolkovac makes a few allies, like an internal affairs officer played by David Strathairn, but despite their reach and high standing, they turn out to be as powerless as she is when it comes to exposing complicity with the local sex trade.

Because of its subject matter, The Whistleblower is difficult to watch for a couple of reasons. First there’s the obvious and depraved abuse of these young women, many of whom were sold into slavery by people they loved and trusted. Although the film is rarely explicit in its depiction of the abuse, there are some rather chilling things alluded to or implied. The other difficulty is the sheer wall of obfuscation that Bolkovac encounters. Whether it’s the fact of the collusion of her colleagues or the fact that they do it so brazenly and without consequence, you can’t help but feel that there’s no way one person can make a dent in all of this.

Still, as they say, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Bolkovac is an admirable character, determined and committed, but at the same time flawed. She took the job so that she might have enough money to spend more time with her kids, but in the process she’s given a position requiring more than a six month commitment. However, the film doesn’t dwell on Bolkovac’s difficulties as a mother connecting to her children, but perhaps how she used that longing and poured her heart and soul into helping these young women.

A gut-wrenching journey, The Whistleblower tests your patience and gives you hope. Anchored by some pretty solid performances from Weisz, Redgrave, and Strathairn, as well as character actors like Nikolaj Lie Kaas and David Hewlett, this is a compelling drama and highlights a frequently overlooked issue. First-time director Larysa Kondracki, who also co-wrote the screenplay, keeps a very tight grip on the material and delivers the story with precision and determination. Well made with a good message, The Whistleblower is a film that deserves to be known far and wide.

Agora

Rating: ***

The historical drama Agora opens with a star field, as the camera pans down to get an orbital view of the African continent from space. And for a minute there I thought I had put in the wrong DVD. But matters of planets in space are very much on the mind of the filmmakers as they tell this historical dramatization of the fall of the Library at Alexandria and the rise of Christianity. Yes, science and religion clash in their age old struggle, which in the time of Agora was still a youthful struggle.

Rachel Weisz plays Hypatia, a philosopher, scientist and teacher that lives in fifth century Alexandria. Against the back drop of the waning years of the Roman Empire and the increased sectarian violence between Christians, Jews and Pagans, Hypatia teaches the future leaders of Alexandria about the Earth and the heavens. Weisz is really quite perfectly cast in her role. With her authority and grace you can understand how this woman would hold such an important place in Alexandrian society in a time when being an independent, authoritative woman was the exception rather than the rule.

But it doesn’t take long to see why Agora was the subject of a little controversy when it was released in theatres earlier this year. A Spanish Catholic group called Observatorio Antidifamación Religiosa (or Religious Anti-Defamation Observatory, for you English-speakers) said that the film promotes “hatred of Christians and reinforcing false clichés about the Catholic Church,” and that’s actually pretty close to being true. The Christian mob is mostly raving and dogmatic, while the defenders of the Pagan faith are elite and decedent. You don’t need a degree in history to know how this is going to turn out.

Not to get overly political in a DVD review, but I did appreciate the loaded allegory. And it’s not one way either as it’s the Pagans responding with violence to Christian defacing of Pagan relics that leads to the Christian siege on the library and its eventual destruction. Still, looking at the performances by Sami Samir as the local Bishop Cyril and Ashraf Barhom as street preacher Ammonius it’s hard not to see the vicious streak of modern TV evangelicals like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. If you hate those guys, you’ll love Agora, at least during the parts where Cyril and Ammonius are getting all fundamental.

Story-wise, there is a lot of political intrigue in terms of who Christianity overcame centuries of oppression and became the one’s doing the oppressing. The debate is magnified in Alexandria prefect Orestes (Oscar Isaac) who was one of the ones battling the Christians outside the Library but converted when he felt which way the wind was blowing. Through the years, he continues to depend on Hypatia for insight and counsel, even though she rejected his romantic overtures. Isaac wears Orestes struggle to find harmony well, as well as his character’s own struggle between idealism and pragmatism.

When the focus of the film is on the political and religious instability of Alexandria during this period, I found the film very engaging. But when we cut away from that to follow Hypatia’s dissection of heavenly bodies, or worse still, the struggles of her former slave Davus (Max Minghella) and his bizarrely confusing love/hate relationship with both his former mistress and his Christian faith, things get stalled. Minghella’s idea of angst seems to be to scrunch up his face as if both perplexed and irritated by every situation.

Although the various stoylines come out in the end with mixed results, there is something in Agora that made it compelling enough to see all the way through. Visually though, the film is amazing to behold. The sets and the additional visual effects work are wonderful, and the cinematography by Xavi Giménez almost makes you feel the scorching sunlight of the desert through your TV set. The photography was lush and vile and it made you feel like the crew had gone 1,500 years back in time to film the movie. Modern political allegories make Agora compelling, but the film was also very pretty to look at. Some better character development would have taken Agora to the next level, but the film, as it is, works well enough.