HLJ's Movie Blog

The Constant Gardener

John Le Carre said in an interview on the DVD that when the screen adaptation of his book The Constant Gardener was pitched to the Hollywood bigwigs, it was rejected because the movie included the “A� word – Africa. It seems Hollywood, who ever that is, wasn’t ready to make a movie about Africa, or at least not this movie about Africa. It’s a good thing that they weren’t ready. The Constant Gardener would not have been as good had it been made by some Hollywood hack.

The film was shot partly on location in Kenya. The scene in which Tessa and Arnold walk through Kibera was actually shot in Kibera. Kibera is a city within a city and has over 800,000 people living without running water and sanitation. When they show the two of them walking through filth and children sorting through garbage, it’s real. That is one of the subtleties of the film, how the reality of life in Africa comes through. And it’s not just the reality for the British folks who live there, it’s the reality that the Africans themselves live with each day. One of the many sequences that illustrate this is a party scene. It begins with shots of people working in the kitchen. A waiter picks up a tray and heads through the swinging doors. The camera follows him out as he brings the food to the stuffy British mucky-mucks attending the party. There are several moments like this in the film, where we get to see snippets of African life from the African’s point-of-view. I won't debate the fact that a white dude shot the picture, but his intensions were to show Africa from the African point-of-view. It’s not something that a Hollywood director would include. They would probably insert shots of the British hob-knobbing amongst themselves and show plenty of shots of the gorgeous décor.

The story is a good one; part mystery, part love story. It’s a bit sad, but it will keep you intrigued. It’s also good because it’s not a typical Hollywood action movie, even if the trailers made you think it was.