Ridley Riefenstahl?!?

I watched Body of Lies with a good friend, who’s also a prominent political activist and broadcaster here in Edmonton with a particular interest in international affairs and American-perpetrated injustices abroad. He seemed very disappointed with my blithe endorsement of the film, which he felt did an unforgivable job of glossing over the true roots of anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world — the film shows a lot of victims of violence, he observed, but none of it committed by Americans. Later on, he went further: when you get right down to it, he said, Body of Lies is collaborating with an American distortion of history. How, he asked, does this act of artistic collaboration on the part of Ridley Scott any different from Leni Riefenstahl?

“Well,” I stammered, “for one thing, Ridley Scott wasn’t commissioned by the American government to make a propaganda film.”

To which my friend shot back, “Well, doesn’t that make it even worse?”

I’m actually kind of worried that I lost a buddy over this movie — just before we parted ways, I told my friend that I really couldn’t understand the argument he was making, and the appalled look on his face at my inability to grasp what a crime against documented historical truth this movie represented is something I will never forget.

The thing is, you can lob a lot of criticisms at Body of Lies — especially the way its attempt to provide an on-the-ground tour of the counterintelligence effort in the War on Terror keeps getting pulled off-track by its (likely studio-mandated) desire to shoehorn in a corny romantic subplot and a steady diet of explosions and car chases — but the idea that it promotes a Riefenstahlian view of American foreign policy seems a little extreme to me.

Indeed, the movie pretty much takes it as a given that any decision that comes out of Washington is by its very nature misguided and doomed only to alienate Muslims further. The film’s real villain isn’t Al-Saleem, the shadowy terrorist leader with a plan to set off bombs in a string of locations across Europe and the U.S.; it’s Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), the pudgy, sedentary CIA official with a certain minivan-driving affability but with a minimal understanding of Muslim culture and a cold-blooded willingness to sacrifice human life as well as the trust of the men he has on the ground. My friend would probably disagree, but the scene where Hoffman casually monitors the deadly business he’s set in motion halfway around the world from the sidelines of his daughter’s soccer game struck me as a pretty sly takedown of Sarah Palin-style “hockey mom” morality.

Hoffman’s most skillful operative is Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio), the rare American agent who speaks Arabic and genuinely seems to appreciate and respect the local culture. For me, this is the first role where DiCaprio seems genuinely convincing as an adult — although it probably helps that in most of his scenes, that boyish face of his is covered with cuts, bruises and scars. After this film and Blood Diamond, DiCaprio is verging on self-parody — how many times can one glamourous movie star turn up in one of the globe’s trouble spots and play the only white person in the world who understands what’s really going on here, dammit!?

Along with his baby fat, he’s lost that uncertain look in the corners of his eyes that’s dogged his performances ever since Titanic; in Body of Lies, he’s confident without seeming pleased with himself or arrogant. But he still keeps that boyish quality in reserve — although he’s as devious as any spy (even creating a fake terrorist organization in order to draw Al-Saleem out), he seems genuinely pained in one-on-one encounters to be caught in a lie.

The person he lies to the most is Hani, the head of Jordanian intelligence, who’s played beautifully by Mark Strong, a stylishly clad smoothie whose wary chess-game relationship with Ferris is the best thing in the movie. Strong has a long list of roles behind him in everything from Syriana to Mrs. Pettigrew Lives for a Day, but I’ve never taken notice of him until now — he brings a fascinating, leonine poise to this role, and there’s something touching about his insistence on total honesty from the people he deals with, even in a world where the chief currency is deception. His resemblance to Andy Garcia is kind of uncanny — it’s about the only thing about Body of Lies that my friend and I could agree on.