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  Film: The Interpreter (web only) April 10, 2005 Reporter : Peter Thompson Director: Sydney Pollack  This review was not broadcast on the Sunday programme of April 10, due to extended coverage of the Masters Golf Tournament on the Nine Network.Watch video For many of its 60 years of life, the United Nations has barely raised a ripple of public interest. But it's been rather more in the news lately, mainly for its resistance to the war in Iraq and subsequent efforts to force the resignation of Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Coincidentally, a major feature film arrives which uses the UN as the setting for a romantic thriller. In fact, the vast buildings constructed in 1946 on Manhattan's East Side are a major character in the story. But The Interpreter isn't essentially about the UN. It's about two people who get caught up in its labyrinthine politics and have to make contact across a gulf of personal strife and cultural difference. In that sense, the UN becomes a kind of metaphor for the personal drama that unfolds and perhaps for the wider human story as well. Silvia Broome is one of scores of interpreters working in the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations on a daily basis. As well as Spanish, French and so on, she speaks a number of African languages because she comes from the East African country of Matobo, currently ruled by a savage dictator called Edmund Zuwanie. The fate of Matobo casts an eerie light over the story. Silvia's family has been tragically involved in its power struggles and her brother is actively supporting one of Zuwanie's rivals. Edmund Zuwanie is scheduled to speak to the General Assembly to defend his ruthless policy towards his opposition. Returning late one night, Silvia overhears words spoken in the Matoban language, Ku. Sydney Pollack: She hears sounds coming from a set of headphones and when she listens, we're told, because we don't hear it — we hear it but it doesn't mean anything to us — that what she hears is a death threat. Although he's telling a fictional story about an imaginary country with a fictional language, director Sydney Pollack characteristically puts a high value on authenticity. With unique and unprecedented access to the UN's actual buildings, he had to find someone who would be believable as Silvia Broome.  Sydney Pollack: I always saw Nicole in this role because, to begin with, she's not American, to start with, she's Australian. There's something slightly exotic about her and believable as someone from a foreign country who speaks with a kind of exotic accent. I mean, there are a lot of wonderful American actresses who I don't think you would believe are from a country somewhere in the southern part of Africa and who speak all these languages.Silvia's revelation of the death threat draws in the FBI, but she finds herself under suspicion. Agent Tobin Keller believes there's more to her story than she's letting on. Her distress is increased by the belief that she's in personal danger. Sydney Pollack: I think because I was trying to avoid a conventional romance, I was looking for someone who would be abrasive with her, someone where it would be more like oil and water, where it wasn't as easy a mixture as would seem. Sean Penn might seem a daring choice for the role of Keller, but Sydney Pollack started out as an actor and an acting coach and performance is his primary focus. Nicole Kidman: I think it was such a good mix of people and I'd love to work with both of them again. And I felt so protected by Sean and stimulated by him. He's just the most wonderful actor to watch, he's so magnetic, and then to be in the hands of someone like Pollack, who has directed Redford and Fonda and, I mean, you look at the films he's made and I still look at Out of Africa and I melt! You know, The Way We Were, Barbra Streisand … this man has given us such great stories. Pollack's films have always included male-female relationships as essential, if not primary, ingredients, but as he's matured, those relationships have become more complex and nuanced. Mainstream audiences have turned away from some of his most interesting films, such as Havana and Random Hearts, so it will be interesting to see if The Interpreter connects with a broad cross-section of people. Nicole Kidman: There's a man and a woman who, through their particular losses and the things they've gone through, meet at a time in their lives when they're both quite damaged and both in need, deep need, of solace. And they find it through each other. And I think that that, set against the backdrop of the thriller, is what makes it unusual.  I'm strongly biased towards Sydney Pollack because he seems to me to represent the best aspects of the classical American film tradition. The performances in his films are always immaculate and in The Interpreter, both Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn deliver some of their best, most powerful work. It's not a dazzlingly original film, but it's rich in precisely-observed emotional detail. And when all's said and done, that's one of the reasons we watch movies.For movie session times, visit: ninemsn's Movie Guide |
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