My husband and I have been disagreeing about "Zero Dark Thirty" for a year now. He thinks its a great film and Jessica Chastain should have won for her role as Maya. I believe the film is excellent technically, but not great, and Chastain should have won for "Tree of Life" but not this role. I was curious as to what we'd both think seeing it again. The acting is flawless, but I'm a fan of Jennifer Lawrence, so I don't begrudge her the Oscar last year. I do love Chastain's mobile, expressive face. And she is a great beauty, unlike Lawrence. The other cast members are terrific, and it gave me quite a pang to see James Gandofini in it. Mark Strong is a stand out and Chris Pratt and others very distinctive, despite uniforms and dark lighting.
I admire Kathryn Bigelow as a director, and in both this film and "The Hurt Locker" she handles volatile material by focusing on the effect of huge issues on one lone individual. That's a good plan. It worked perfectly in "Hurt Locker", and you come out thinking of what combat does to alter the psyche of a the soldier, and make him unfit for civilian life. He/She is thrown back into regular life, but traumatized and unsupported. It was a very compassionate film.
But "Zero" is more complicated. It caters to our anger and revenge impulses, and focuses on the suffering of a CIA operative, instead of on the people epicted who are tortured, or the soldiers who carry out the CIA's commands. My guess is Bigelow had a better film before Bin Laden was killed, and since much of the film had already been shot, she had a hybrid on her hands and lost control of whatever she originally wanted to say. So the movie is a "Rocky" story now, about how a female bested the guys and her tenacity led to the kill. It is Maya's singlemindedness that gets her the guy, and it is also her tragedy. You can tell she thinks she has paid tribute to all the people in the towers, but you don't necessarily see it her way. Or the government's way. Is the tragedy that she has been led astray by patriotism? And what did the kill accomplish? It was simple eye for an eye Biblical stuff.
Some of us can't get on this ride and go all the way to the end. We can see the downside to killing what you know and then facing what you don't know. The terrorists have learned from this kill, not just us. And then the torture. The film definitely shows torture as being beneficial, though most experts in real life do not agree. It becomes an advocate for black ops and hidden torture sites and unbelievable cruelty, which makes it hard to distinguish us from them. So the film loses some of its intelligence, and makes basic human rights expendible in the face of OUR suffering.
What Bigelow wanted to say doesn't matter. The images are too strong. And like a "Silence of the Lambs" you don't want this film in anyone's consciousness, because it's likely to fester and breed only cruelty. So for me, "Zero" is a brilliant failure. And I hope Chastain gets another chance at a nomination. She's a keeper.
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