Review: ESSENTIAL KILLING - Solid & Thrilling Cross-Country Chase Thriller

By Robert Beames / July 1, 2011

rating: 4

(Rob's Venice review re-posted as film is released in the U.K. this week) Three American contractors walk through the Afghanistan desert. They're healthy-looking, tanned and wearing sunglasses. They engage in light-hearted banter as they investigate a system of caves, backed up by helicopter support. It could be an episode of Generation Kill, or The Hurt Locker. The camera is objective, even detached. Then we cut to a disorientated, breathless, first-person view of a man running. He's running to avoid the soldiers we have seen. Soon, we are taken back to the soldiers: still laid back and cool. It is clear that, to them, this hunt is routine: a job. For the other guy it is survival, and killing is an essential part of life. Alerted to his presence by a sudden noise, the Americans pursue the man into a small cave cut into the desert rock. Hyper-ventilating and gripped with extreme fear, the man let's fire an RPG - instantly blowing the Americans (our would-be heroes) to pieces. Welcome to Essential Killing, a film by award winning Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski (The Shout, Four Nights With Anna), which played in competition today in Venice. As you've probably gathered, it is the story of a man on the run. The Fugitive for the post 9-11 generation, if you will. Vincent Gallo stars as Mohammed, the Afghan detained after that opening encounter, and taken to a Guantanamo-style prison camp. After facing torture and interrogation in the prison, Mohammed is transported to an unspecified part of Eastern Europe (filmed in snowy parts of Norway and Poland), where he is able to make a daring escape after his transport rolls off the icy road and down a hill. What follows is a cross-country chase, as Mohammed must evade capture at any cost. Essential Killing is about survival and if Mohammed must take a few lives on the way, then so be it. There is nothing noble or heroic about our protagonist, as he does some very disturbing things, though the film doesn't judge him either. He could be anyone, and the director has already been keen to dissuade political reading of the film. But it is difficult, if not impossible, to ignore the context of the story and I found its use of that set of circumstances to be a daring and compassionate. Unlike Miral, this film doesn't talk in platitudes in order to solicit empathy. It doesn't need to soften the edges and make excuses in order for us to understand its characters' basic humanity. Instead, like the Chris Morris comedy Four Lions, it asks you to accept more complicated truths about our nature. The film is mostly silent, with all substantial dialogue spoken in English, and in fact, even then, I don't recall Gallo saying a single word. The film gets by on Gallo's pained and desperate expression as he is savaged by dogs, shot at by helicopters and hit by a falling tree. Even when he turns killer, it is without relish and with an almost pathetic air. The landscape photography, by Polish cinematographer Adam Sikora, is beautiful, but without undermining the hostile face it presents to Mohammed as he deals with extreme cold and difficult terrain. The Daily Mail brigade may take against it when it sees a UK release, but this solid and thrilling film should do quite well in art cinemas. If it kept up the pace of the opening half hour, I'd even fancy it to do ok in the multiplexes, but alas it loses steam, becoming slower and more existential late on. Normally that might be a good thing, but after a week of slow and existential I enjoyed the thought that it might be a straight-up thriller. It also features some dreadful, though pleasingly brief, flashbacks. I personally felt Gallo's character needed no further context or motivation than was provided by his acting. Overall, a strong film and, along with Black Swan and Silent Souls, this is potentially a candidate for the main prize. Essential Killing is released in the U.K. on Friday.