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A Mighty Heart
Reviewed by Theo Michelfeld
Posted: June 24, 2007              

Daniel Pearl’s abduction and videotaped beheading are extremely risky subject matter for a movie. After all, Pearl was exploited once, on a horrific level. To dramatize the case now, with cameras rolling on Hollywood actors in staged duress, puts his dignity at risk all over again. But the makers of A Mighty Heart, in chronicling Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping, have made human dignity their highest priority. The film is more than just tasteful and respectful. It’s a testament to human goodness, which tends to steel itself, if it’s the real thing, when confronted with human depravity.

A Mighty Heart is adapted from the book by Daniel’s wife Mariane, who was five months pregnant at the time of the kidnapping. As portrayed by Angelina Jolie, she is an honest, intelligent, and brave woman who deeply loved her husband. With so many ways to mishandle her story, the film wisely focuses on Mariane’s character primarily to the extent that it serves the overall message, highlighting her steady optimism and goodwill, even when faced with dread, horror, a salivating media, and sometimes murky diplomatic waters. This was a shrewd approach by the filmmakers. Much as anyone would admire Mariane Pearl for what she endured, we would not necessarily benefit from a film about hand-wringing.

The film also frequently departs from Mariane’s story, as it follows the various Pakistani and U.S. investigators in their search for Daniel. It’s true that this search has considerable dramatic momentum, despite its foregone conclusion. But primarily it serves the overall message of optimism. More than anything this film is a story of cooperation, as a dozen or more diplomats, police investigators, journalists, and federal agents from the U.S. and Pakistan come to Mariane’s aid and mount a very competent and nearly successful rescue for her husband. It’s an enlightening, and a welcome, sight. And for those, like myself, who didn’t know: the perpetrators have been brought to justice.

Another powerful element of this film is its knowing but nevertheless overwhelmed sense of place. A Mighty Heart takes place in the Pakistani city of Karachi, and it presents that city as vast, dense, and unknowable even to itself. Many agree that one of the challenges of our conundrum in the Middle East is the sheer foreignness of the environment. Few Americans have a clue what’s going on over there. The film Syriana used a deliberately fathomless plot to dramatize this reality. A Mighty Heart uses similar tactics at times, hurling characters, situations and agendas at us faster than we can catch them. But it also lets the city of Karachi be its own impenetrable mystery. And without stooping to terrify us, the numerous ventures into this teeming Middle Eastern city do seem to serve as a journalistically truthful advisory that we might better understand the culture we’ve wandered into.

No review of this film would be complete without addressing the distraction that is Angelina Jolie. While I find it inexplicable that she won an Academy Award for that performance in Girl, Interrupted, and while I actually enjoy very few of her movies at all, I still would have admitted, even before A Mighty Heart, that she is talented, and that her talent makes her a more interesting media obsession than Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan. Still, for a true story about a recent terrorist kidnapping and murder case, this brother-kissing, blood-drinking, Brad Pitt-stealing, Jon Voight-hating, refugee-adopting, Humanitarian Award-winning super-celebrity would seem to be, aside from Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan, the least appropriate person to cast in the lead role. But Angelina Jolie is excellent in this movie. Her accent is effortless, her pregnancy is convincing, and she embodies Mariane Pearl’s essential decency like a person very familiar with the quality. Angelina Jolie, despite her juicy personal life, is still a good actress, and has every right to take on the challenges of a serious dramatic role. And good for her, she nailed it this time.

But A Mighty Heart is not about Angelina Jolie, and everyone involved knows this. This is a film about our current struggle against terrorism—the realities we face, the tools we need to face them, and the critical importance of keeping our souls intact even if our hearts are breaking. In this film, the Middle East, by way of Karachi, is presented as a culture in ideological conflict with itself. The forces of reason and justice are presented as multi-national, various uncorrupted and savvy professionals sharing information, trusting each other, and relentlessly pursuing a positive outcome. And the battlefront is seen as a moral one. At the end of this film, Mariane Pearl declares “I am not terrorized,” and here sums up the moral essence of counter-terrorism. What we face today is a threat not only to our lives but to our humanity. Through Mariane Pearl, a woman whose life was crushed by terrorism, we see that bravery and decency are the only way to meet the challenge and emerge un-defeated.

Copyright © 2007 Theo Michelfeld