The Trap: 2007
As my job hangs in jeopardy, I watched a few different films. I decided to focus on films where the main characters were forced into tough ethical situations because they had no hope. Each film presents different issues, but the underlying problem is each character overcoming the struggle between economics and ethics.
The world of Recycle is unflinching in its realism. Abu Amar is a former mujahedeen who returned to Jordan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The film follows Abu Amar through his struggle to support his family by gathering cardboard. Abu Amar lived on the same street as Al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the two shared many similarities. Both Zarqawi and Abu Amar had humble origins and rough situations, and the film made clear that the path to war in Iraq was always open to Abu Amar. Although the film injects pieces of politics or current events, Recycle is a film mostly about the desperation of the poor.
Jordanians, especially poor Jordanians, found themselves unable to make ends meet. With few opportunities, some turned to jihad while most chose immigration. Many Jordanians in the film claim the latter was un-Islamic (a few said both were). A few loyal Jordanians attempt to eek out a living between the cracks of a wealthy society, and an even smaller number of them hope to accomplish things to help a large cause. Abu Amar spent his days writing a book he hoped to publish. He bagged hundreds of small slips of paper with ideas scribbled on them in a defunct coffee shop. Abu Amar filled his days with gathering scraps and his nights working on the book.
Near the end of the film, a suicide attack takes place in Jordan. Abu Amar, clearly innocent, is rounded up as part of the investigation. After four months (none of which was filmed), he is released. The film closes with Abu Amar's decision to leave Jordan. Although he was one of the people who considered leaving un-Islamic, he never explains his choice in the film.
Abu Amar's choice to leave was one of many desperate moves he made to support his family. During one unfilmed sequence, Abu Amar and a friend attempt to sneak over 50 cars into Iraq by tying them together with rope. Shiite militia attacked the pair, so they hid in a hotel and shaved their beards to blend in. When one of the ropes broke, they tried to tie it back up. An American patrol spotted them, almost shot them, and the two fled back to Jordan without finishing their trip. Both men escaped with their lives but stayed in a desperate situation.
The Trap focuses on a man constantly trying to escape from a tight spot in post-Milosevic Serbia. When Mladen (Nebojsa Glogovac) nearly loses his son to a heart defect, he decides to commit a murder for a wealthy man. Mladen's initial misgivings increase when he discovers the man he must kill is married to someone he knows. Mladen kills the man but discovers the money isn't forthcoming. Mladen battles with what he's done and keep his family together while attempting to get the money from the man who hired him.
The film is a portrait of a desperate society where certain people have absurd wealth while others can't afford basic care. Those unable to afford survival must make compromises in order to succede. Marjia (Natasa Ninkovic), Mladen's wife, teaches a wealthy and entitled student. The student demands private lessons in front of the class, which Marjia rejects because a teacher tutoring her own student is unethical. When the student cites the ad Marjia put in the paper asking for donations as proof of Marjia's need, Marjia ejects the student from class. Later in the film, Marjia arrives at the student's home for tutoring. Marjia asks about an empty frame in a living room and the student says her father bought the frame for 30,000 Euros (the price of the boy's operation) but couldn't find a worthy picture. Marjia returns home crying saying, "They just expect us to go extinct."
Serbia in this film is a place without ethics. The poor must constantly compromise to survive, for the wealthy and connected compromised earlier. The original "Man from Moscow" reveals himself to be in debt to the gangsters and set up the murder to keep his house. Mladen gets drunk one evening and accuses the wealthy teenagers of having parents who stole enough to be rich. After Mladen gets beaten soundly by the teenagers (deservedly because he threw a rock through a windshield), the police accuse him of starting the fight. When Mladen drunkenly confesses to the murder, the police consider him a crank and let him go. A man like Mladen is low enough to be ignored, even when confessing to a crime.
It's hard to say if the old communist Serbia would have been better for Mladen, but he clearly got into capitalism too late. Those who left the state-run enterprises for private business had all the tawdry trappings of wealth while he struggled to maintain his crew. Mladen asks his bank for a loan, and the teller rejects him with a smile. When Mladen asks what amuses the teller so much, the teller says that the foreign bosses will fire him if he stops smiling. Those who were quick to "adapt to the new order" are successful, and those who stuck by older ways (or didn't get out at the right time) are left to "go extinct."
Both Mladen and Abu Amar lived simple lives in honest careers. However, their societies never allowed them to advance above a certain station. They both lived in societies in transition, but neither person nor their society is ready for change. Despite both men attempting an honest living, their situations force them to make impossible choices: Preserve their families or their ethics. The men both choose their families over their own pride, but both films want us to understand that selling one's pride is not easy.
Each film shares a similar cinematography. Recycle's award-winning shots show a world of decay and difficulty. Two girls play in old wedding dresses, clearly second-hand items from a Western wedding, in a film where adults struggle to maintain their self-respect while they think their culture dies next door. The Trap is full of dull florescence and grey days, implying the bleak conditions of the situation. The boy's second-hand Dallas Cowboys jacket is a nod to the poverty of the main characters, for the wealthy children have designer fashions from Europe.
Although both films take place in foreign lands, we in America should recognize our own situation. The film John Q has Denzel Washington holding doctors from a high social class hostage in order to get his son a heart transplant. A film adaptation of Nickled and Dimed would be America's version of Recycle. While our society may lack the appearance of desperation, it's because those films haven't been made (yet).
Other Films:
The Laramie Project: 2002
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