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I TRY NOT TO DWELL ON THE PAST
by Derek Johnson
Grade: B-
“I try not to dwell on the past.” James Bond says this to M (Judi Dench) after searching an apartment in Haiti and subsequently killing its occupant, the contact of a duplicitous British agent. It’s a telling statement not only for Bond (Daniel Craig in his sophomore outing as 007) but also for the twenty-second movie in the long-running series. Taking place an hour after the events of Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace finds Bond attempting to uncover a terrorist organization so secret that not only do no intelligence organizations know about it, but the CIA is in bed with one of its members (Greene, played by Mathieu Amalric). This is not just an assignment for Bond but a personal mission to discover who was finally responsible for turning Vesper at the end of Casino Royale. The movie is thus rooted in the past by being the series’ first direct sequel, and as such finds the forward-looking Bond dwelling on the past regularly. Bond’s drive to Siena, Italy occurs via a new Aston Martin (the series’ staple car), and ends in what appears to be a series medieval tunnels. As he and M discuss the supposed death of Vesper’s boyfriend, Bond steals a picture of Vesper from the file while M isn’t looking. As M and Tanner (Rory Kinnear) review files in MI6’s high-tech warrens, Bond stalks prey in developing countries (Haiti, Bolivia) mired in past exploitation. When Bond and Camille fly over the Bolivian desert to uncover the MacGuffin of Greene’s very twenty-first century concerns, they do so in a DC-3 prop plane. Even the ruse of trying to control the world’s oil (water is Greene’s primary concern) looks back to a twentieth-century obsession (to say nothing of a previous Bond entry, The World Is Not Enough). The contrasts between looking forward with one eye and backward with another is something the series has done frequently since Sean Connery left in 1971; that Quantum of Solace makes this its key theme is all the more remarkable. Alas, Quantum of Solace is frustrating. In looking backwards and forwards it cuts Bond, both physically and psychologically, in ways we’re not used to. This is hardly surprising when one considers that the movie is continuing to explore ground covered by its predecessor. (It’s not surprising, either, that Craig’s is the first Bond who actually bleeds after a fight.) Deep though these cuts might be, however, they are too often quickly bandaged by unnecessary action sequences. Worse still, the bandages aren’t as binding as they should be; they threaten to unravel the entire picture, leaving it to die from blood loss. Quantum of Solace hints at greatness. Certain scenes suggest a picture only a rewrite away from standing alongside the best in the series: Bond and Mathis discussing the ambiguity of our And there are wonderful touches unique to the world of Bond. Bond, posing as an assassin assigned to kill Camille, nonchalantly knocks a contact from his motorcycle and tails her. After rescuing Camille from General Medrano’s boat, Bond docks at a pier and hands an unconscious Camille to a dock worker. “She’s seseasick,” he tells him. As he and Mathis fly to Bolivia, Mathis wakes from a sleeping compartment to find Bond drinking martinis -- six of them! When Agent Fields (Gemma Arterton, given far too little to do) takes Bond to a hotel in Bolivia, Bond voices his frank disapproval and finds, presumably, the best hotel in the city. Sadly, these elements aren’t given the room to breathe. In fact, they feel like they’re in the wrong movie. Action abounds. Bond is chased by plane, by boat, by car, on foot. Some sequences are standouts. The chase that opens the movie is gripping and engaging in a way that Bond’s car chases have not been in years. The fight and ensuing shootout that occurs as Bond attempts to identify the members of QUANTUM intercuts scenes and music from Puccini’s Tosca, to visually and aurally arresting effect. The fight in Edmund Slate’s apartment is quick, brutal, efficient. Unfortunately, unlike Casino Royale, where the action was an organic part of the story, growing out of suspense, most of the action in Quantum of Solace feels tacked on and extraneous. It’s as if director Marc Forster, not trusting the screenplay by Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, decided to keep the viewer’s attention by throwing as much action at the camera as possible, whether or not it made sense to do so. Even worse, he films the action incorrectly. Though technically well-done, the action would have worked better had it been slowed down to reflect Bond’s inner mood. Had Bond’s sense of self been fractured and disjointed (as in Ian Fleming’s novel The Man with the Golden Gun), the quick cuts would have made sense. The screenplay doesn’t help. Greene wants to destabilize the Bolivian government so that it can be given rights to a vast amount of desert covering an untapped water resource. They also want to set up infrastructure rights to not only the water but all utilities. It’s an interesting idea, but it could have been more fascinating had it been fleshed out and polished. Whatever the movie’s problems, casting is not one of them. In Casino Royale Daniel Craig put his stamp on the character immediately, dispensing with the idea that an actor needs to “grow” into James Bond. (It takes three pictures to get Bond right? Please. This is a pulp adventure hero, not Hamlet.) If anything, Craig deepens that connection. Emotionally dead and adrift, his Bond fights with fulfilling his duty yet cannot help being driven by revenge for Vesper’s death. It’s a tightrope performance that I don’t think any of his predecessors would have been able to walk, yet Craig does so effortlessly. It is therefore a pity that we didn’t get to see more of it. Mathieu Amalric provides us with glimpses one of the most human villains the series has ever seen, yet his motivation is underdeveloped. Olga Kurylenko gives us the best-developed Bond girl we have seen (in terms of backstory), and never remains less than watchable. Moreover, she seems to be a literal bird with a wing down, sporting a bad burn on her back, suggesting but never literalizing her inner pain. (An angel with its wings removed?) Judi Dench, back as M for the sixth time, provides us with the perfect professional foil for Bond. Giancarlo Giannini, who returns as Mathis, gives a performance outwardly generous yet weighed by sadness. Even Jeffrey Wright, whose Felix Leiter is given far too little screen time, proffers distaste for the political machinations of his partner Beam (played to smarmy perfection by David Harbour) that is both palpable yet understated. It’s with his actors that director Marc Forster shines. Quantum of Solace is also unique in its use of locations, each with their own title captions, the captions themselves given their own typefacing. Rather than the gloss and glamour of Casino Royale’s locations, we are instead given glimpses of a seamy, gritty world. Both Haiti and Bolivia feel cramped and lived in, real, breathing places, and as a consequence help ground the picture. The locations consequently bolster the cinematography; the movie certainly looks good. What makes Quantum of Solace a lesser entry in the Bond canon is that it simply does not live up to the promise of Casino Royale. That the movie tries to cover new ground is commendable, but that ground is smothered in action when it most needs drama and suspense. While it’s certainly more watchable than any of the pictures from 1965 to 2002, it doesn’t live up to its aspirations. Let’s hope, with the next installment, that Bond’s reach doesn’t exceed his grasp.
Contact the Author: Derek Johnson
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