Saturday, June 21, 2008

Kosmopolis

Author(s): Sergio
Location: Spain

"Kosmopolis"


Directed by Anthony Minghella
Written by Anthony Minghella
Music by Gabriel Yared
Photography by John Seale
Edited by Walter Murch

Main Cast

Hugh Jackman (Steve Newman)
Jake Gyllenhaal (Vince Newman)
Gwyneth Paltrow (Madeleine Turner)
Djimon Hounsou (Adewale Wombosi)
Thandie Newton (Noreen Adjewa)
Michael Caine (Richard Newman)
Diane Kruger (Steve’s wife)

Tagline: "Where everything began"

Synopsis: An unexpected accident puts in danger the whole project of Kosmòpolis, the search of the exact place of the first civilization of the human being, the first town in the world. Vince, the young architect of this project, dies in the accident, or it wasn’t an accident. He was the only one who can be nearby the supposed longed place.

Steve Newman, a rich and famous architect from Chicago receives a call from Africa. It’s his brother’s wife, Noreen, and she tells him about his brother’s death and his last will of being buried in Africa, but Steve doesn’t consent it. Steve has to proceed with the movement of the corpse to the United States but all becomes very complicated in the distance. His money and his father’s influence, an important builder, is not enough and Steve decides to go personally to the Central African Republic (C.A.R.) to arrange all the paperwork and bring his brother with him. It has been four years since he saw his brother for the last time and he has missed him very much. They both were architects but with different values and goals. Steve is an ambitious architect, more similar to his father, Richard Newman, but Vincent has a social concept of his profession.

Vincent went away to Africa to develop an urbanization project, in a degraded zone in the C.A.R. He belonged to the AWB (Architects Without Borders). He didn’t care about the money and his father’s big company. He didn’t want to become an ambitious, speculator man with no scruples as his father is. When Steve arrives to Africa he meets his brother’s team of people: architects, archeologists and historians from all over the world and he finally meets Noreen, his brother’s pregnant wife, the woman who calls him with the bad news. He starts fascinating with his brother’s work and he can feel the love of the people towards Vince. Madeline Turner, the anthropologist of the project, shows him what are they doing and what they want to do for the country. The group wants to do houses to the natives and they hope they can recover a land that they owned once and in which they might live with all the infrastructures. But the piece of land is occupied by a warfare group now and all of them are in danger.

Steve finally accepts that his brother has to be buried in Kosmopolis, so he starts a trip to the deep of the country. Steve has to negotiate with Adewale, a soldier that manages the access to the zone, but things won’t be easy. Finally Steve will go to the place accompanied with Adweale, Madeleine, Noreen and his brother’s corpse. Steve will know Kosmopolis and, even with the evident signals of the war, he found it a wonderful place to live and to work for. They will do a trip to the centre of the world, the centre of the human knowledge and philosophy, a mystical journey that will change Steve’s mind forever and that will captivate his soul, belonging to Africa for the rest of the existence.

What the Press would say:

This film is about a journey. This is the great emotional voyage of Steve Newman (Hugh Jackman) from Chicago, the civilization, one of the biggest cities in the world, cradle of the modern architecture, to the heart of Africa, the beginning of the human race. Africa has become one of the favourite locations in films and “Kosmòpolis” shows us why this unknown continent is so important. Steve gets into the centre of the earth, where everything began, the land of the first mother. This is an odyssey that ends with his burgess life, changing his values, putting him in contact with his primitive nature. Nobody understands him but he fells empty. He understands the people working there, with his brother, giving their lives to this project. He finally understands his brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) y he feels close to him, closer than ever. He loves his brother and he loves what he has built and Steve wants to keep it alive although he has to die for it. Land is not his own and he doesn’t own the land but he knows he will spend his last days there. Hugh Jackman enters into the best role of his career, with a character that suffers a great transformation in the inside. We can see the physical and emotional evolution of the character in an amazing way. Djimon Hounsou gives us a great lesson of acting being in the skin of this ambiguous character who keeps a big secret about Vince’s death, a secret that is killing him in the inside. He is the conscience. Thandie Newton is Noreen, the pregnant woman who loses his husband and who has to go on with a great strength. Her character is the representation of the first mother, the suffering of the world. Madeleine (Gwyneth Paltrow), the anthropologist, is an intelligent woman capable to analyze the human behaviour and understand it in all the situations. She is the big support of the rest, the cold brain and the knowledge. This story can be dense at first but once you let it penetrate your mind you can’t let it go. That is what Minghella wants to obtain with a complex directing, the amazing locations and the density of the dialogues and the actions. Minghella drives perfectly this big human drama with a complex screenplay, full of twist and dramatic scares. This is not the typical film about Africa. This is a film about the missing of the human instinct and the search of our origin.

FYC:

Best Picture
Best Director: Anthony Minghella
Best Original Screenplay: Anthony Minghella
Best Leading Actor: Hugh Jackman
Best Supporting Actor: Djimon Hounsou
Best Supporting Actor: Jake Gyllenhaal
Best Supporting Actress: Thandie Newton
Best Supporting Actress: Gwyneth Paltrow



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