Reviews

The last film I saw that offered an equally dark and twisted view of the human psyche, was Pasolini's Salo: a glimpse of something truly dehumanizing and a portrayal of the triumph of evil. SATC works along the same lines, establishing characters without any redeeming qualities, absolutely devoid of decency and empathy. At a certain level, one can see the film as some sort of uber-feminist dystopia, replete with scenes of symbolic castration; or maybe some sort of super-consumerist manifesto, where existence is distilled as lifestyle and an hymn to superficiality; or maybe as a nihilistic social commentary, where self-centeredness and egotism are systematically rewarded.

One thing is for sure: it is a deeply disturbing experience for the male viewer. The male characters in this film are gay, sex toys or rich daddy figures. The 4 females leads are predatory, utterly self-absorbed, devoid of any moral compass, guilt-infusing middle aged "professionals" - exaggerated caricatures of an equal-rights fantasy gone terribly wrong. It is a combination of American Psycho, In the Company of Men and Fight Club from a female viewpoint - an immature and violent wet dream that is justified based on the " I am being me" and "I love me" principles. I challenge any man to check out the scene where Kim Katrall's character dumps her boyfriend of 5 years ( that stuck with her through chemotherapy to boot) because she "loves herself more" and not get enraged and scared at the vision offered.

Of course, a lot of suspension of disbelief is required, since at the same time, the film borders science fiction - it is hard to digest that these women, manipulative as the may be, can actually transform successful and emotionally stable men into pathetic, apologetic train wrecks.

If you watched this with your wife and girlfriend and she didn't spot anything reprehensible in the main characters' behaviour, you, my friend, are in deep, deep, deep trouble.

The Company is a pretty decent mini-series about the CIA and the Cold War; I found it informative and well put together, even though a number of crucial CIA moments were absent. The cast was uniformly good, and even though no amount of make-up and prosthetics can make Chris o'Donnell look older than 22, I thought he was OK.

Make no mistake, this is not John Le Carre stuff: it is not drenched in nihilism, pointlessness and failure, even though it does not seem to be James Bond Universe either. More than anything, one is left with the impression that all little treasons and nonsense aside, there is some sort of idealization and nostalgia for the Cold War, when you knew who threatened you and why and why you had to fight ( even thought both CIA and KGB pictured themselves as the good guys and protectors of the common folk). Molina's character near the end summarizes a view of the cold war that seems to be prevalent these days, that the side who screwed up less won and that the USSR looked pretty good on paper but was really flawed.

If you consider that it's only been 17 years since the demise of the Soviet Union, this detachment is pretty impressive. But then it goes to show how different the world has become today.

I have watched about 30 episodes of the show and cannot, in all honesty, decide whether it's brilliant or crap. Every aspect of it seems uneven, overly complex or simplistic, the amount of suspension of disbelief required in order to enjoy it is immense and yet..and yet "Alias" cannot just be dismissed.

The acting is bloody terrible - the actor playing Garner's CIA handler looks on the verge of tears every time and the one playing her dad just pushes his lips together and looks constipated. Yet, the cameos by Tarantino and Faye Danaway are great and Lena Olin creates a very intriguing character throughout season 2. The whole concept of an evil global alliance bent on world domination places Alias in the James Bond spy universe - good looking, well dressed, very urbane, multilingual, savvy and cruel guys, against well dressed, immensely talented, good guys.

Most of the dialogue goes to show that the show takes itself very seriously and even though it is not as bizarre, self contained and irrelevant as a Mamet script, it still is far away from how normal people talk to each other.

And then there is Rambaldi. A fictional renaissance inventor/artist, whose creations ( dispersed in hard to get to locations all over the earth) are coveted by seemingly everybody in the intelligence community and their enemies; they seem to hold the answer to mankind's eternal questions about power and truth and life unending.

Reading my review so far, I realize that I haven't touched upon the main premise/plot line of the series, that of a young woman being recruited by the CIA right out of college, only to discover that she has in fact been recruited by SD-6, a criminal organization posing as the CIA. Then the CIA recruits her and asks her to act as a double agent. And her father is a double agent as well. And her mother. Only she might be a triple agent or something. It looks a bit preposterous, no? Still, it somehow works. I was more annoyed with the whole " your plane leaves in an hour, infiltrate that facility in this east European city, grab the schematics/usb/camera/suitcase etc., kick ass on your way out and come back" idea, that seems to be how the creators of the show vizualize how high-priority, top-secret, intelligence-gathering operations are conducted. Jennifer Gardner dresses up, goes to the place, speaks a bit of the lingo, gets in the lab, grabs the stuff, comes out kicking or shooting and is brought back to the states every single time. Seriously, this process I just described accounts for at least 90% of the episodes.

All that notwithstanding, the show seems driven by some sort of ambition that hope gets it somewhere and for that, I give it a 6.