Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | A | Arena Magazine

Karen Halasa on Syriana.

Article Excerpt
Variously described as a 'hyperlink text', geo-political thriller and an example of Hollywood's shift to the left in times of war and crisis, Stephen Gaghan's Syriana is a sweeping, at times confusing, coalescence of contemporary issues that could broadly come under the heading: 'the effects of globalism'. If a thumbnail sketch were required of the impact of global capitalism on the lives of all of those drawn into its vortex, the inexorable 'logic' of ruthless greed and exploitation, this film could provide it.

Based loosely on ex-CIA operative Robert Baer's See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism, Syriana's interlacing threads of narrative move along concurrently (hence hyperlinked). The film traces the impact of a merger between two oil companies--Connex and Killen--which results in the fifth-largest oil company in the world, with a Gross National Product larger than that of Pakistan or Denmark. A fictitious Middle Eastern emirate situated near Iran, with some as yet untapped oil fields, becomes the focus for the struggle between Chinese interests in the region and a US government concerned to maintain profits and 'the American way of life'. The sons of the ageing emir--one a Westernised playboy, the other committed to a reform agenda for the country based on liberal democratic rather than theocratic values (one of his platforms is the vote for women)--are competing for succession....

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!