Syriana

Film makes reality unbelievable

by Junius

The producers of Syriana were very brave to take on the big issue, mentioned often in the pages of The Republic, of the foreseeable running-out of Middle Eastern oil. Unfortunately, they have made a mish-mash of it. There is no need to see Syriana. Better to spend the dollars on Linda McQuaig’s book, It’s the Crude Dude: War, big oil, and the fight for the planet (Doubleday, 2004). McQuiag is very convincing on the role of the US in manipulating Middle East politics to maintain control of spheres of influence.

“Oiligarchy” has been in operation for the start: J D Rockefeller of Standard Oil “never hesitated to lie, cheat or toss aside any code of fair play or common decency, not to mention observance of the law, in his efforts to eliminate all competition,” writes McQuaig. She points out, moreover, that all the moves of Big Oil have been with the complicity of the US government, involving either the State Department or the CIA. Remember how Mohammad Mossadegh, a truly popular prime minister of Iran who moved to nationalize their oil industry, was ousted and the Shah, a US puppet by this time, brought in. Of recent events in Iraq, the pro-invasion Christopher Hitchens has said on The Slate website, “Isn’t oil worth fighing for?”

Syriana imagines a moral, humanistically-inclined Arab prince who intends to take oil returns for his own nation and use the money for reforms. Naturally, the CIA has to take him out. This is a strong concept for a screenplay; however it gets lost in the mix. Whereas it is the job of a film to take a fictional situation and make it seem true, Syriana takes a major truth about the present oil world and makes it seem fictional. They had a chance to do a real Saudi Arabia, but instead they did a fictional Syriana and filled it with romantic desert landscapes and stock characters. The usurping brother is at a billiard table with a cue, obviously villainous, while the old Saudi/Syriana potentate sternly tells the good son “My decision is final.”

It takes a while for the film to reach these clarities. For the first hour the audience simply doesn’t know what’s going on. That would be embarrassing ever if it didn’t include oneself. Then George Clooney goes up the wrong street and we have to watch while two of his fingernails are pulled off with pliers. We still don’t really know why. This experience doesn’t seem to change him much. He gets his fingers bandaged neatly and goes back in. Most of us would want to get out—of the theatre, I mean.

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