Powerful...thought-provoking...touching!!. Review on The Constant Gardener Movie

A man avenging his wife’s murder…safeguarding humanity…lust and deceit shadowed by the clout of money...love and life diluted by greed… justice winning the race against life…a life well spent…a conscience justified..

Adapted from the John le Carre novel of the same name and directed by Fernando Mereillers, and with a host of Oscar nominations to its credit, The Constant Gardener tells the story about all of the above. The story begins as many love stories do… in a cliché. The boy-meets-girl, anger-followed-by-love sequence of events, momentarily blinds the viewer into almost dismissing the movie as another romance flick. The characteristic ‘BUT’ that every film plot twists into is inherent in the commencement of this film too.

The Constant Gardener is a story of Tessa and Justin, the former a staunch human rights activist and the latter, a temperate British diplomat attached to the British High Command in Nairobi. Mereillers living up to his reputation for detail as has already been exemplified in his earlier film, City of God strategically introduces his characters and exposes every minute detail, that enables the viewer to conjure a mental image of their personality.

Tessa ( Rachel Weisz)is firmly established in the mind of the viewer when she is introduced in the context of a United Nations meet, where she delivers an emotionally charged dialogue about the ‘pathetic country that is Britan’ and criticises the spinelessness of the UN in relation to its incapacity during the Vietnam and the Iraqi War. The scene itself strikes out for the blatantly truthful acknowledgement about the UN that very few movies have courageously portrayed. Tessa overcome by emotions breaks down and is comforted by Justin, whose speech had incited the fiery response. The scene portrays the feminine tinge in Tessa’s strong personality, at the same time conveying the empathy that is integral to her strong character.

Justin Quale(Ralph Fiennes) is a soft-spoken British diplomat whose job profile is conventionally devoid of risks. A simple man, with simple desires; his penchant for the meticulous art of gardening is the element that the director uses to carve his soft-spoken, yet orderly character. The audience first sees Justin bidding adieu to Tessa at the airport. The viewer gets a premonition of the finalty of the farewell as the scene closes in on the Justin waving to the retreating figure of Tessa as she mouths the words ‘I Love You’.Just like in Carre’s novel Tessa ends up brutally murdered… the murderer and the motive unknown.

The western media have classified the movie in the genre of ‘thrillers’ .But in if one were to go into a deeper, this film would probably be a part of the larger umbrella of ‘human interest’ filmmaking. Human-interest stories usually revolve around an issue that has had or is bound to have grave implications on human life.

The Constant Gardener speaks about an issue that lies at the core of the scientifically developing world today. Based against the context of the booming medical industry that has adopted a covertly commercial agenda replacing the conservative ‘service for humanity’ doctrine, the film talks about the testing of invented pharmaceutical drugs on human beings. On one of her visits to Kibera, a small semi-urbanised village, located in the heart of Nairobi in Kenya, Tessa unearths a scandal endangering millions of lives. A big pharmaceutical conglomerate, Big Pharma has deputed its doctors, with UN assistance to set up medical camps in the remote, poverty stricken village that is devoid of any means of basic health awareness. On the pretext of diagnosing the patients for AIDS and tuberculosis, Tessa on her visit there discovers that the doctors in Big Pharma organised health camps are prescribing untested drugs and at the same time dispensing outdated ones. Challenging the doctors’ authority is futile, as the patients are forced either by the medical authorities or by ignorance to sign medical consent forms. Refusal or hesitation to sign on the dotted line merits a ‘non-entitlement to medical care’ agenda. With no one to enlighten them about the hazards and the prospective threat to their lives, the people are reduced to guinea pigs for the experiments that would serve to benefit the entire human community, were the drugs to prove effective.

Tessa and a Kenyan doctor, Arnold Bluhm, (Hubert Kounde) embark on an insight procuring quest to quell their fears. Their suspicions are substantiated when the owners of Big Pharma are reluctant to divulge details about their Kenyan endeavours. Resembling a spider, the scam’s tentacles are embedded in the British High Commission, the local medical fraternity as well as African bureaucracy. Alarmed by Tessa’s growing interference and the fear of being exposed, the parties embroiled in the controversy initially ignore her petitions and letters of enquiry. Undeterred, the investigation continues but Tessa and Arnold end up dead under mysterious circumstances. Justin is devastated, by her death as well as the rumours of her infidelity with Arnold who is also the prime suspect for her murder. Visiting Kenya to collect her belongings, he picks up the trail of the scam as he happens to chance upon the Tessa’s documents. Transformed from an aggrieved husband to a widower with a mission, Justin determinedly vows to reach Tessa’s unfinished quest to its finale.

Ralph Fiennes of The English Patient fame, speaks volumes with his silence in the Constant Gardener. Portraying the calm character of the passionate gardener, his unconditional love for his wife ,the simplicity of his persona,his aggrieved vulnerability upon her death, warms the viewer to his characeter. With a spate of movies like The Mummy, Constantine and the Runaway Jury, Rachel Weisz brings Tessa alive, complete with the curtness and satire that the social activist harbours .Having shot in Kenya when 9 months pregnant, sans make up, her eyes expressing a the magnitude of her emotions, she adds to the authenticity of the characeter. Hubert Kounde plays the part of the Kenyan doctor with relative ease, his patient perceptiveness complementing the lividity of Tessa’s character.

Houses with tin sheets for walls and roofs tightly packed together, the concept of space seemingly forgotten, throngs of people culminating into a sea of faces, faces of children and adults alike mirroring a dying desire to live, crying babies with bloated stomachs harbouring hunger, playing children instituting rudimentary road blocks at the sight of a car, innocent mouth demanding dollars to let it pass, imprints of grimy palms on the window panes, stagnant sewers forming pools of plastic… this is the picture of Kineria, the largest slum in the sub-Saharan desert. Mereillers’s camera travels through the interiors of Africa, through the tribal villages in Kenya and open desert lands. Teaming up once again with cinematographer Cesar Charlone, the film’s cinematography has a characteristic coarse touch. Occasional jerks of the camera when it captures images as they would have appeared to Justin, the sway as it confronts the desert winds or the bumps over the rocky terrain contribute to the unfinished yet realistic look of the film.

Ran outta space, so am continuing in the COMMENTS section...:)