Film Review / Nicole Wallenbrock
Putting the Bad in the Battle In Seattle
Battle in Seattle, directed by Stuart Townsend.
Battle in Seattle has gained more press exposure than the average independent film due to its controversial setting: the riots and demonstrations attended by over 50,000 at the WTO conference in Seattle, Washington in 1999. And then there is the film’s talk show-hopping Hollywood star, Cherlize Theron. The talented actress, who surpassed expectations by playing an overweight killer in Monster (2003), has a lot less star making material to work with in this disappointing directorial debut of her Irish fiancé Stuart Townsend. In truth, Battle in Seattle follows so many narratives, it is difficult to say that Theron is the star, even if her name is its publicized feature. By following the trials and tribulations of four racially diverse young activists, a television reporter, a cop, his pregnant wife, and the mayor of Seattle, the narrative strives to be Altmanesque, but ultimately provides little more than a collage of under-developed stereo-types. In truth, though the film’s production company, Insight is independent, Battle in Seattle does not appear to subscribe to the rules of such categorization. The film takes no risks in casting unknowns (and instead casts many minor players of the major world) and its plot follows the classical Hollywood paradigm complete with an emotional score and a happy ending.
Townsend makes a number of nods to Altman, but his primary inspiration is another political film of a protest turned riot, Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool (1969). Medium Cool follows the story of a television journalist obsessed with capturing the real story of change in Chicago despite being dismissed by his station. Only weeks before the DNC he develops a relationship with a West Virginian mother and her 12-year-old son. The narrative thus comments on the state of media and the interdependent web of the personal and political, while its editing and cinematography further blur documentary and fiction. This attempt at transgressing fiction and non-fiction is Townsend’s most overt reference to Medium Cool; actors are placed within the riots by splicing documentary news footage when an establishing shot is needed. This is seemingly infantile when compared with Wexler’s approach, for rather than researching footage of police brutality at the DNC in 1968, Wexler anticipated the protests and wrote his script to include it. By physically placing his fictional characters within the unrest, Wexler questioned the nature of cinema. Townsend rather questions the nature of originality, or lack there of, while celebrating predictability. While Wexler captures the beat of 1968 in the year itself, Townsend reconstructs what he only witnessed via the web, almost a decade later. Hence, though Townsend is emulating the immediacy and realism of Medium Cool, the montage looks as if he badly cut and pasted videos. Furthermore, the artificial dialogue and the flat characters contrast greatly with the actual footage of the riot. Thus the film’s Hollywood tendencies are enhanced and the realism of Medium Cool or The Battle of Algiers, for instance, is never even approximated.
Though no reference is made to the political circumstances of 2008, the film premieres roughly a month after the RNC where police again used teargas on peaceful protestors. Similarities between the need for action in 1999 and 2008 abound and one might assume that Townsend hopes to inspire current activism with the stories of fictional heroes clad in t-shirts and scruffy jeans. Jay (Martin Henderson), appropriately outfitted with beard and scarf, serves as the predictably white male protagonist, mastermind behind all of the protest organization. His blossoming romance with Lou (Michèle Rodriguez) struggles to keep our attention, and almost wins through the sheer humor of trite sexist dialogue. Rodriguez, who started her career as almost butch in Girlfight (2000), continues to play feisty and tough, though now with a sweet loving feminine touch. She relaxes her fist throwing anarchist tendencies when sobbing in her jail cell, and then holds hands through the bars with Jay as he tells her to “stop crying like a girl.” (How serendipitous that within all the chaos of the 1999 Seattle WTO shut down, our lovers’ would land next to each other in the jailhouse!) Unfortunately, if Jay and Lou do inspire you to activism, it will not be in hopes of romance. The romance plot does not even seem to interest the actors, and adds nothing to their “Let’s go out and get those motherfuckers!” (direct quote) ideology.
The other activist to note is the only African-American one, Django (Outkast’s André 3000). Django, like most black supporting roles, and most are supporting, offers comic relief and optimism for the white characters and audience. Django can be facing the teargas, at the end of a police baton, or with others bleeding in jail, but will always, as a good performer, wear a big smile. Although Jay’s back story is the death of his activist brother who was chained to a tree and then cut down, Django’s past is only referred to when he recounts a bedtime story his grandpa told him about turtles. One must suppose that this sweet story is what inspired Django’s love of turtles and subsequent fierce opposition against the turtle-killing fishing industry. Although Outkast deemed 2002’s live action Scooby-Doo flick worthy of a soundtrack song, the only hint of André 3000’s musicality in Battle in Seattle is an a capella rendition of Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
If the actors appear as cardboard cutouts of radicals and anarchists, one should note that Townsend’s search for accuracy did include consultation with David Solnit, a real Direct Action Network organizer who was part of the WTO protests in 1999. Solnit tried to correct the script, and evidently did alter large sections despite the director’s resistance. He explains in Yes Magazine that along with other activists, he succeeded with a pressure campaign, “applying tactics (they) often used in anti-corporate campaigns,” but were consulted “too late to change the film’s basic narrative.” Alas, one may hope that perhaps with more time, Solnit and friends could have corrected not only the stereotypes of activists but also the consistently banal dialogue, and what becomes an obstacle course of characters. Other veteran WTO-protest participants who do not agree with the film’s portrayal of Seattle in 1999 have bonded together on a website, therealbattleinseattle.org, which follows Solnit’s conclusion to settle for the mediocre. Their website statement: “It’s a huge improvement over corporate media lies, but won’t tell the motives or thinking of the people who shutdown the WTO.” Although one can easily agree that the Direct Action Network characters are superficial constructions, the film primarily affronts the activist community with its weak script piped full of lofty meaningless inspirational statements and a badly directed cast that was then later, badly edited.
Although the film inserts footage of the violence committed to protesters by cops, police are in no way demonized. In fact Dale (Woody Harrelson), a low level mob-control cop might be the most fully developed character. Dale’s pregnant wife, Ella (Charlize Theron), is beaten and miscarries when she passes through an unavoidable riot on her way home. Dale’s sadness turns to rage when he is forced to return to work after learning the unfortunate news, and this fuels his violent attack on our peaceful protagonist, Jay. Dale alone chases Jay through Seattle’s side streets and beats him to a pulp at a church before he handcuffs his narrow wrists. But because this climatic confrontation between antagonist (cop=bad guy) and protagonist (Jay=organizer=good-guy) must be resolved, the film allows for major character development in a jail make-up chat where Dale visits Jay and says that he is sorry several times. Jay then tells him that it is okay, “You were just doing your job.” This is a surprising turn around for the audience who has only twenty minutes before watched the two characters clash violently in the street. Theoretically, the miscarriage of Dale’s wife and his apology would allow the audience to sympathize with his character despite his crime. Yet the opacity of Dale’s attack and the apology leave the viewer apathetic. This is part of larger general disinterest, for the audience cannot relate to any of the stereotypes presented in Battle at Seattle, whether it be cop or radical.
Townsend (whose career highlights include a guest role as a pastry chef on Will & Grace) seems to have filmed Battle in Seattle with the narrowly didactic purpose of educating those who might have forgotten the historic clash between activists and police, vandalism and media that took place in 1999. He thus begins and ends the film as a very expensive power-point presentation, with charts dissolving into more charts, arrows pointing to dates, and photos cut into smaller photos. Despite Townsend’s aim to win a place in classrooms, his over-wrought style becomes less educational than clunky and confusing, and though the film aims to be objective in capturing both the activist and the cop perspective, the bookends of data wash the film in a liberal preachy-ness. If you do consider yourself to be politically liberal, Battle in Seattle is another film that will shame you, by painting leftist politics as the simplistic wet dreams of the Hollywood industry. Indeed, in an act of self-respect one is tempted to deny affiliation with the fatigue-jacket backpack crew already described. If this situation befalls you, I recommend returning to earlier times of American activism by rediscovering Medium Cool, a film that is ground-breaking and relevant forty years after its release. The riots of Medium Cool are frightening in their violence, and compelling in their place within a fictional narrative; Battle in Seattle is at its best a watered-down tribute to this film of ‘69 that still exposes the reality of protest and media in the United States.
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