The Constant Gardener Analysis

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The Constant Gardener and the art of planting ideas.

When you hear the words “political thriller” you may imagine some national treasure type shenanigans, brash loud action heroes and more explosions than perceptive dialogue. The Constant Gardener however has an altogether softer approach exploring themes of morality which are subsequently much more empowering and the journey of a grief stricken man.

“If I tell you that girl over there is being murdered, will you believe me?”. The Constant gardener is inflammatory, no doubt. It deals with the manipulation of the vulnerable by trusted first world figures and makes its audience examine uncomfortable questions that we tend to cast aside in absence of any answers. Meirelles has the unique talent
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As in gritty reality, Tessa often needs to compromise her basic morals for causes she considers more important. Typically, the film deals with this idea of justifying actions by weighing consequences against each other and treating goodness as one might add money to a bar tab. In doing so it reveals a deeper understanding of the issues its peers so clumsily deal with. Whereas most thrillers so often tend to paint their prime conflicts as black and white, The Constant Gardener paints its world grey, quite literally too, hazing the lines between good and bad so far that we, the audience, are not given any moral guideline while watching this film. The big pharma are certainly cast as the villains in the eyes of the protagonist. But when their reasoning is “to better the majority we must make minor sacrifices” we are forced to concede the logicality of it or at least that we are okay with it considering we as first world citizens with “inalienable” rights so often reap what others have sown. And even if the hypocrites we are still stand against the idea, the film highlights Tessa's uncomfortably similar rationale, albeit on a much smaller …show more content…
The use of colour, sound and landmarks succinctly portrays each location along with unusual shots and oft unused film techniques. This culminates in the audience perceiving the film as happening on a much greater scale than that of a low level english diplomat going on an OE, while also managing to keep its unassuming nature. It does not require the presumptuous global intrigue nor grandiose cast of other such films to retain our attention. Instead the film very much zero’s in on the ‘everyman’ Justin, making it simultaneously more relatable and profound to the viewer. After all in reality we only have our own perspective on the scope of an issue and to use too many perspectives and make it too “wide” is to cut off the audience from the emotional stakes of a film. As the films blurb declares it “is a vast conspiracy at once deadly and commonplace”. And meirelles delivers that effortlessly, by showing the international extent of the conspiracy to establish engrossing stakes but making it relatable enough that those stakes become our

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