REVIEWS Kon-Tiki Reviewed by Tim Grierson


Based on the true story of Norwegian explorer Thor Heyer- dahl’s perilous 1947 voyage from Peru to Polynesia on a raft, Kon-Tiki has its stirring moments but mostly resembles a Nordic variation on the typical award-seeking Hollywood biopic: earnest, stodgy, impressively mounted but a little too enamoured with its own importance to cut very deeply. Directors Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg deliver an old-fashioned adventure yarn that revels in its gorgeous photography, this muted drama’s most memorable element. The film opened on August 24 in Norway and broke local


The Reluctant Fundamentalist


Reviewed by MarkAdams


Good intentions and a desire to be balanced but also thought-provoking weigh down The Reluctant Fundamen- talist, a film that tackles important issues without taking sides and which tries to balance intelligent drama with a dash of political action. It is to director Mira Nair’s credit that for much of the per-


haps overlong running time the central story of Wall Street financial analyst turned militant Lahore-based professor Changez Khan (a striking performance from Riz Ahmed) is absorbing and intriguing, though the film never finds the right pacing or structure to satisfy the dramatic arcs. How- ever, The Reluctant Fundamentalist does tell an important story, offers some challenging insights and at times has moments of strikingly powerful drama, all set against impressive New York and Pakistan backdrops. Mohsin Hamid’s original book deals with a meeting


between Khan and a US journalist, which gradually becomes more revealing as the conversation takes fresh twists. Wil- liam Wheeler’s screenplay has to open up the story, and the conversation at the core of the film is punctuated by flash- backs and asides. While necessary, these rather deflate the tense nature of the discussions between the two men. The film opens in Lahore with the kidnapping of a US pro-


fessor, intercut with a family party attended by Khan which sees him take a secretive phone call. It is not clear what is hap- pening, but when Khan agrees to meet journalist Bobby Lin- coln (Schreiber) the atmosphere is tense. Lincoln wants to discuss the kidnap, while Khan wants to explain his own story, opening with the statement that “looks can be deceiving”. In a series of flashbacks Khan details his academic suc-


cess at Princeton; how he was recruited by financier Jim Cross (Sutherland) to become a financial analyst for a top Wall Street company; and how he met photographic artist Erica (Hudson), who happens to be his boss’s niece. Things change post 9/11. Khan witnesses the events on


television while on a business trip, and when he returns to the US he is taken aside at the airport and strip-searched. While not politicised by the shift of attitude in the US, Khan slowly starts to change. This all leads to a meandering cli- max as both Bobby and Changez reveal the truths about themselves as a CIA assault looks to descend on their tea- house in pursuit of the kidnapped professor. British-Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed (Trishna) is in most of


the scenes and proves a charismatic lead, with a finely nuanced performance that carries the film. It is frustrating that other characters feel a little clichéd. » See profile, page 34


n 14 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2012 GALA


India-Pak-US-UAE. 2012. 128mins Director MiraNair Production companies Mirabai Films,Cine Mosaic, Doha FilmInstitute International sales K5International, www.k5international.com ProducerLydia Dean Pilcher Co-producersAmi Boghani,Anadil Hossain Screenplay William Wheeler, screen story by Mohsin Hamid andAmi Boghani, based on the novel by Mohsin Hamid Cinematography Declan Quinn Editor ShimitAmin Production designer MichaelCarlin Music MichaelAndrews Main cast RizAhmed, Kate Hudson,Liev Schreiber, Kiefer Sutherland,OmPuri, ShabanaAzmi, Martin Donovan,NelsanEllis, Haluk Bilginer


box-office records, but its chances of international commer- cial success are far from assured. Kon-Tiki’s rugged men- against-nature plot and widescreen visuals could help, but for territories unfamiliar with Heyerdahl, the movie’s lack of marquee names could be a major drawback. Kon-Tiki stars Pal Sverre Hagen as the plucky Heyerdahl,


who became convinced the accepted notion that Polynesia was settled by Asia is wrong — instead, he insists, it was colonised by South American explorers. He cannot convince the scientific community of his theory, though, so he recruits a handful of men to join him on a journey across the Pacific Ocean on a handmade raft to duplicate the South Ameri- cans’ hypothetical first expedition. At first, Hagen as Heyerdahl comes across as an impossi-


bly handsome, charismatic adventurer whose confidence is infectious, recalling Peter O’Toole’s dashing turn as TE Law- rence in Lawrence Of Arabia. At the same time, though, he hints at the uncertainty beneath Heyerdahl’s brash exterior. (The explorer could not swim, and the actor implies that Heyerdahl’s desperate compulsion to be proved right spurred his willingness to risk his and his crew’s lives.) Unfortunately, despite cinematographer Geir Hartly


Andreassen’s striking photography, Kon-Tiki rarely reso- nates as strongly as the subject matter would suggest. From the beginning of the voyage, there is concern the raft’s logs are not bound tightly enough, but no matter the many daunting obstacles in Heyerdahl’s path (including shark- infested waters and terrible storms), the gruelling 100-day journey is insufficiently dramatised. Kon-Tiki thus feels oddly anticlimactic once it reaches its


triumphant ending. Roenning and Sandberg ably stage a few harrowing ocean sequences — and there is a beautifully understated digression that links Heyerdahl’s journey to those of modern-day explorers — but the lingering sensa- tion is that one has witnessed a prestige production in which every emotion and dramatic irony has been finely mani- cured, scrubbing away the messy and fascinating humanity that gives such moments their power.


SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS


Nor-Den-UK. 2012. 119mins Directors Joachim Roenning,Espen Sandberg Production companies Nordisk FilmProduction, RecordedPicture Company, Film i Vast, Roenbergfilm, DCM Productions, Aircontactgruppen, Solbakken, Motion Blur, Henrik Bergesen, Film 3, FilmlanceInternational, Norwegian FilmInstitute, Eurimages,Nordic Film and TV Fund, Malta Film Commission, Swedish Film Institute, Danish Film Institute, Media i2i International sales HanWay Films, www. hanwayfilms.com Producers Jeremy Thomas,AageAaberge Executive producers Lena Haugaard, Henrik Zein,Peter Watson, Johan Chr Stenersen,Petter Skavlan, Dario Suter, Christoph Daniel, Marc Schmidheiny,Lone Korslund, Harald Zwart ScreenplayPetter Skavlan Cinematography Geir HartlyAndreassen EditorsPer-ErikEriksen, Martin Stoltz Production designer Karl Juliusson Music Johan Soderqvist Main castPal Sverre Hagen,Anders Baasmo Christiansen, Jakob Oftebro, Tobias Santelmann,Odd-Magnus Williamson, Gustaf Skarsgard,Agnes Kittelsen


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