My amazon prime account is winding down. I'm gladly letting
it expire; it makes you sample too much that do not deserve
to be watched. But in the final few days I do get to binge on some
good stuff.

Sean Penn's _The Last Face_ is an artfully directed film about
two doctors serving with _Medecins Sans Frontieres_ in war-torn
Africa. The film was booed at Cannes and savaged by critics
for its alleged "perfume commercial" love-story whitewashing
of African conflicts. Non-professional reviewers seem to converge
on the critique that the story does not shed light on the
origins of those conflicts.

The film is never intended to be about Africans. It is about NGO
workers who risk their lives in war zones. "Doctors without
Borders" (MSF) is my favorite charity; a round of applause should
go to the extremely brave and dedicated men and women who serve
there. But NGO workers are human beings too, often very flawed
ones; there is no lack of news coverage about arrogance towards the
locals from some of them, or about the questionable ways they
blow off steam. The stories of these people deserve to be told
(regardless of what armchair critics who have never set foot in
dangerous places think), and _The Last Face_ is one of these tales.
I was once embedded in a lab in West Africa (far from conflicts) and
saw first hand both the selflessness and the egotism, both the wily
veterans and the idealistic desk jockies who really don't belong in
the field. The thing the film gets wrong (perhaps intentionally)
is that Westerners are as often resented as they are hailed as
saviors -- even by the people they are saving. (The Chinese,
who own vast swaths of properties but also operate charities, are
alas universally hated.) To paraprhase Tolstoy, all happy countries
are alike; every unhappy country is unhappy in its own way. A
fictional film is never going to shed universal light on the origins
of conflicts. (I sat in on a Ministry of Health meeting, and my
meeting notes, while edifying, would mean nothing to the nation
across the border.)

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Javier Bardem's Miguel is a salt-and-pepper roguish charmer, a hit
with both the ladies and the locals. He is a pragmatist who thinks
only of saving one life at a time. He thrives in the field,
loves playing God nonchalantly amidst life-and-death emergencies.
Charlize Theron's Wren is descended from humanitarian royalties
and inherits her father's mantle. She is a buttoned-down idealist
who wants to save the entire continent. The two opposites naturally
fall in love even as their philosophies and world views repeatedly
clash. A bloody ambush by militia child soldiers drive them apart;
10 years later she has become a program administrator and he has
stayed on the front line. They have a touching reunion on the eve
of her moving speech to wealthy donors.

The widescreen compositions are memorable, and some shots make
you intone Terrence Malick. (There is even a Malick-like oblique
voiceover by Theron, delivered in a faraway reverie, in Afrikaans
accent.) The brilliant editing is what really makes the film work,
juxtaposing serenity and carnage, his viewpoint and hers, past and
present. I have never seen Bardem more convincing. Theron,
who grew up in South Africa just like her character, also gives
the transcendent performance of her life. She is introspective and
restrained, especially in the first half of the film. Her school-girl
long straight hair and measured speech makes her unrecognizable
from the accustomed scenery-chewing extroverts she has played.
It is an astonishingly thoughtful and sensitive performance.

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The philosophical difference between Miguel and Wren anticipates the
chasm between filmmakers and self-righteous critics. Miguel, director
Sean Penn, and screenwriter Erin Dignam are on the side of the tangible
few; it is like performing triage. Wren and the critics insist on a
blanket salvation for all. That lies in the realm of politics, where one can battle so long for so little gain. (_Complete Unknown_ with
Rachel Weisz makes the same point.) In an early scene she is shown in
a board room filled with suits, fighting to put more pessimistic truth
into press releases filled with happy propaganda. Who am I to say Wren
is wrong. Perhaps I went to African thinking like her, and left
feeling more like Miguel. The calamity is so enormous, and there is so
little one can do. This is a worthy debate, and _The Last Face_ is at
its best putting flesh and blood on it. In her last speech, Wren
emphasizes that refugees are just like you and me, and their dreams
are not luxuries, but their very lifeblood. Some of this surely can be dramatized better in this long film, but dismissing _The Last Face_ for
this one failure would be unfair.

(for A.)

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