The Last Face

There have been many, many awful movies through the ages, all critiqued as such here at IMDB and by professional critics too -But none that I remember was critiqued with such vitriol and, dare I say hatred, as this one.

But it's not this movie that is bad... what's bad is for Americans and Europeans to switch to hateful anger against anything that shows them Africa for what we, westerners, have turned it into.

Sean Penn's The Last Face, with South African Charlize Theron and Spaniard Javier Bardem is no Lawrence of Arabia meets Ryan's Daughter on the Bridge on the River Kwai, hence the eight stars instead of ten. But it is an absolutely competently-made, perfectly convincing, realistic, well-staged, intuitively photographed, honest mirror upon which to gaze at mere snippets of what we have done in Africa -so that we may then break the mirror in denial, yelling bad direction and infantile script. No, sorry, this is a good movie, medium rare instead of well-done and, medium rare is always best when it comes to tasting the blood of something we've killed.

I am not surprised Theron gave such a great performance, as I hear she does care about the continent she's from and the issues there. It was great hearing her speak English, for once, with her real South African accent. Bardem brought the western Mediterranean vulnerable macho to the table. Excellent choice, both, for white-western Doctors in the African savage civil wars. What did surprise me was that an American actor like Sean Penn should have such a profound understanding of what Americans don't see and would have the directorial skill to be subtle about holding our heads to look at it whether we like it or not. Do Sean a favor and keep the volume on high so you can hear what they're whispering to each other at night, just so you can jump out of your seat at the first very loud burst of machine gun fire and explosives.

The love story did not look to me like a "movie prerequisite", unfitting to the subject matter. It felt completely natural and real, and the narration would have felt false without it: it was needed. Both doctors needed it in order to survive what they were witnessing on a daily basis for years. And it was honest. Sure, sure, the lines were not Shakespeare, but real people don't speak like poet laureates or award-winning script writers in real life.

Oh, and the atrocities were not overdone, or "refugee porn" like someone called it: The imagery and actions were still pretty tame and movie-rating accessible compared to what's really going on in Sierra Leone and South Sudan.

I recommend this as great movie to watch and I am wondering whether I should stop short of calling it an Important movie. Nope, I think it may well be an important one.

What might have been a heartfelt African tragedy falters under the heavy hand of Sean Penn who does here, what he once claimed Terrence Malick was guilty of: (with words to the effect... 'Creating something that looked good on paper but failing to transcribe it to film'. Shoddy hand held photography, poor composition, disjointed editing - with scenes that should have been short, left long, and visa-versa. Sound was another problem, people whisper - with it all being so low, as not to be heard. Eye rolling arty shots without purpose - a story that's on again-off again, with performers doing what they can but, being left all at sea by their overindulging director.

A movie maker seemingly pushing his political views - at the expense of third world persons lost to the corruption within their own leaders and an uncaring world - surrounded by repugnant violence (some of the violence is realistically shocking) Mr Penn may (or may not) have his heart in the right place but tends to allow the shadowy edge of politics to blind his visionary vocation. At one point some innocent victims exclaim 'In the name of Jesus' - the people there to help them reply: 'what about in OUR name'? Maybe that's just the point - take Christ's unconditional love from these poor souls and they have exactly nothing! - So, what does the story teller dislike most, the love or the forgiveness? Some music choices on the sound track help to a small degree but sadly, self importance does not, a good movie make. Like other Penn movies this seems to run forever, needlessly.

Great acting but jumps around a lot and was so hard to follow at times I got bored and gave up. Definitely deals with a tough, really unsettling topic so it's not for the faint of heart.

The general low rate given to the film can only be explained by the prejudice to the theme, the Western disinterest in debating Africa. Surely the movie is not so weak to have a 4.7 rating. Anyway, the movie is hard, very hard to watch. It shows one side of African life that no one in the West cares to know, much less give way to. And though a lot of people might think that the realism that Sean Penn employs in some scenes is exaggerated, in fact the real hell out there is much worse than in the movie. In addition we have the hard life of the doctors, impotent in the face of so much cruelty, and who still have to maintain the dignity and the healthy mind to continue his heroic work. Not everyone can handle it. Good performance of Charlize and Javier, in a cast in general quite correct. Unfortunately not everything is perfect and the direction sometimes is irregular, breaking the tense and distressing rhythm of the movie with romantic moments. Still I give 7.0.

Very deep and meaningful story about the shocking things that are still are happening today, while this film has a very cool cinematic look and great acting it becomes very slow and about 30 minutes to long, the ending is good with a little twist which could easily be missed so pay attention.