Un cuore grande

Though based on a horrifying and tragic event, "A Mighty Heart" is a strangely unmoving film. Director Michael Winterbottom throws plenty of details at us about the investigation into the kidnapping of journalist Daniel Pearl by radical Muslims in Pakistan, and the film plays almost like a documentary, even copping the documentary look with lots of hand-held camera shots and jump-cut editing. But the human story gets buried underneath the complex web of details, and despite a solid performance from Angelina Jolie as Pearl's remarkably stoic wife Mariane, I wasn't much moved by the film.

Winterbottom doesn't display a lot of skill at making the details coherent to his audience, and I'm not sure even now who all of the players were or what role they played. He assumes that everyone will already come to the film knowing the story of Daniel and Mariane Pearl, and while I knew the general outline, I wasn't aware of all the specifics, and this film doesn't help. It recreates the feeling of coming into a T.V. series after having missed the opening episode, and trying to digest material without being able to put it into context.

Grade: B

I just saw this film and I really liked. The story is very well told from the point of view of a professional journalist who has to experience with integrity and courage the whole process of losing her husband. I think Angelina Jolie makes AN EXCELLENT JOB. Many times I forgot was the sexy actress, and reminded me several great parts she have achieved in her career, including an Academy award. There is not any importance or relevance that she is a white woman developing an African woman... She is an actress. Until when we are going to play with racial issue. In many countries Hamlet is not from Denmark or Othello is not always a black actor, or Don Giovanni is not an Italian. The directing and several acting in this film are great. And the development of the film showing constantly the misery of this country to understand better their political situation and fanaticism.

It;s very comfortable to enjoy this film and going out in cities where we have so much comforts. I connected with Marianne Pearl, I felt I was with her watching her experience.

Taking away how others may view the Pearle's story and the question of whether or not the family should have been there in the first place, the story was excellent in conveying the emotions felt throughout the whole search of Daniel. Those who are opposed to the purpose of Daniel Pearle being there after 9/11 even with other journalists vacating will only enter and leave the theater wondering if Mariane is trying to give more credit to her husband then what people expect. It's important to walk into this movie with an open mind so that the story will be more real. Major kudos to the creators of this film for bringing a new view on a part of American history that seemed so easily cast aside.

Essentially what we have here is a pretty well done, seemingly step by step account of the investigation into the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002, which of course ended with his tragic murder. It is not without weaknesses. Primarily, watching close to two hours about an investigation that doesn't seem to be going anywhere and eventually accomplishes nothing gets a bit dry after a while - especially because we know how this is going to end. There comes a point when you just want to fast forward through it to the end. Having said that, the strengths definitely outweigh the weaknesses.

Director Michael Winterbottom does a pretty good job of establishing atmosphere. From the very beginning, the chaotic nature of Karachi sets a foreboding tone to the movie, and, although I sometimes find archival footage in movies to be of little use, in "A Mighty Heart" I thought Winterbottom did a pretty good job of blending the archival stuff (particularly clips of Colin Powell and Pervez Musharaff) into the story. Throughout the movie the viewer wonders how Pearl's murder is going to be portrayed, and, again, kudos to Winterbottom. In fact, and thankfully, the murder isn't portrayed at all. What we see are the reactions of those who see the video for the first time and their reactions to the ghastly scene on the tape is sufficient to establish what happened. There was (to me at least) an interesting scene that lasted only a couple of minutes dealing with a typical "ugly American" female FBI agent, who bursts into the Pearl home, ignores the Pakistani authorities, tries to take charge and orders the room "cleared" because she gets a phone call she wants no one else to hear. She disappears immediately after this scene and was never seen again. I just for some reason found it rather typical of how I would expect U.S. authorities to act in a foreign country, and her portrayal was, of course, balanced by the very sympathetic portrayal of the kindhearted Randall Bennett (Will Randall) - an official from the U.S. Embassy who provides great support to Mariane Pearl.

Angelina Jolie was, I understand, a bit of a controversial choice for the part (largely for ethnic reasons) but she put on an excellent performance as Mariane, hopelessly lost in the situation, pregnant with Daniel's baby and totally dependent on others to try to save her husband. Her reaction to the news of Daniel's death was raw with emotion. Ethnic controversy aside, no one can deny that Jolie was superb in this role. Her performance and Winterbottom's direction make the movie worthwhile. 8/10

"A Mighty heart" is a "realistic" movie, that tells a thru story, based on real events and including real people of real life. The movie is actually an adaption of Mariane Pearl's diary, where she tells the story of her husband, the journalist Daniel Pearl, kidnapped and killed by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. The main question for the director Michael Witterbottom was to find the right representation of the reality he depicts. And the choices he made for the movie are both logical and disturbing.

Mariane Pearl, as her husband, is a journalist, and the first form the movie adopts in order to deal with the complex reality of the world is a journalistic style, with a camera always on the move. It really looks like a war reportage for television, that sticks to the events and to the characters in an "emergency"'s style. But surprisingly, this realistic aesthetic also reminds a famous fiction's show about terrorism : "24". And it's especially striking when it comes to action or interrogations (read torture...) scenes, with a Pakistan's Jack Bauer's style cop. If the goals of the directors are not the same ("24" only wants to be entertaining, "A Mighty Heart wants to be more...), and the depiction of terrorism differs ("24" is a show about fear, "A mighty heart" avoids a fear treatment), it's the same need to show every aspects of a situation that creates this similarities in the urge of the mise en scene.

And this depiction of reality, that gives an objectivity feeling to the movie, is a little bit strange when you come to consider that the movie is firstly an individually and personal point of view on a situation. An between the two opposite points of view (the subjective story of Mariane Pearl, and the objectivity of the "24" reality representation), Witterbottom seems to have some difficulty to choose. It really gives to the movie an annoying ambiguous point of view, where you're unable to really understand the nature of the images you're watching. And that's an important question in this kind of movie.

This ambiguity is quite surprising, for Winterbottom seemed to have chosen his style in his previous movies. For a completely different subject (the musical English scene from the Punk to the Techno in Manchester) in "24 Hours Party People", he clearly made his the Ford's sentence about reality that you find in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence" : "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend". And this lack of a strong orientation in "A Mighty Heart" also gives the unpleasant feeling to watch the spectacle of a life more than a testimony about it, and to be an intruder in Mariane Pearl's intimacy, even if the movie claims the contrary.