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"Last King of Scotland" cavorts, spirals,
and descends |
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Written by ROBERT ZWIRNER
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Tuesday, 23 January 2007 |
If one's intent in characterizing a brutal madman is to soften his edges and dull his tyranny, the effort will fail. No murderer's crime is ever truly justified; a victim who, in self-defense, kills another may rationalize the deed, but he can never - should never - feel just in taking another life.
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"The Last King of Scotland"
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 Entertainment
 Art
Written by Giles Foden (novel), Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock (screenplay)
Directed by Kevin Macdonald
Starring Gillian Anderson, James McAvoy, Simon McBurney, Kerry Washington and Forest Whitaker
Rated R for graphic violence, sex and language
Released Wide Jan. 19, 2007
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The crux of "The Last King of Scotland" is precisely how rationalization and justification become conflated. The quick turn of logic required by imperialists and reformers alike to consolidate power, crush opposition, and justify murder is represented in the film by blending the body politic with the body sexual, and Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker) and Doctor Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) operate as dark and light ciphers. Garrigan, an unguided evader of problems, plucks himself from comfort in Scotland to do good in Uganda, circa 1971, whose government has recently toppled and witnessed Amin's succession. Garrigan is a first-rate dirty flirt, and his sex drive rides along his reason quite visibly. As for the new leader, during a rally Amin emerges - and in wonderful style, we watch him approach the dais as if from his seat back, to capture the breadth of his shoulders and physical largesse - and deploys the language of a king. He affects the everyman, then mentions he only eats after his soldiers have eaten first. The populist statement, later more fully realized in his mad paranoia, sets up the film's impelling themes of responsibility and play, especially as concern sex and power.
Garrigan, by dint of panache and directness, finds himself Amin's personal doctor and special adviser, wooed by promises of doing good on a grand scale. Whitaker's performance of Amin is plenty grand, and bombastic, but alternately tender, as if in his quieter moments Amin was a child proud of his Lego city. As Amin slowly disintegrates, Nicholas finds himself caught between his friend the general and oily English power broker Nigel. (Simon McBurney) At times in the film politics are used as a cudgel, when a small tap on the knee would suffice. Nigel is far more redemptive than his wardrobe would indicate, and Nicholas far less than his aviator sunglasses let on.
For any ham-handed realpolitik in the film, though, there are dozens of delightful visual juxtapositions. Though reductive, it is important that Amin, proud of his peaceful black nation, relies on Garrigan, whose face is usually veiled in shadow and from whom the luminous (especially Sarah (Gillian Anderson), the good wife of the good doctor in Mogambo) retreats. As Amin grows more paranoid, Garrigan introduces fake witch doctor juju into his diagnoses; his desire to be liked supersedes his ethics, just as Amin's does. Amin is nearly always slightly wounded when insurgents crop up, and each time Nicholas patches the wound and plays more with the power he is fed. Whitaker deserves the acclaim coming to him; it is, of course, the audience's responsibility to recognize his outsized performance relies on Amin's outsized megalomania, and to cringe accordingly. And in taking up the imperialist gantlet, the film demands we look at Africa, our own imperial intent therein, and not justify what we have already quaintly rationalized. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
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