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Movie Review: 'The Interpreter'
by T.C. Lynch
3 May 2005
"The Interpreter" is a new thriller starring Sean Penn
and Nicole Kidman, directed by Sydney Pollack. It is a
well-crafted, well-acted, but ultimately mediocre
film. Left to my own devices, I would probably not
have seen it at all. But I wanted to spend some time
with a friend, and he suggested the film. Which brings
me to my recommendation: while I don't suggest that
you seek out "The Interpreter," if you are set on
seeing a film, I can at least say that there is little
here to offend a racially conscious White or to
corrupt a racially unconscious one. Indeed, there are
some interesting elements of racial realism in the
film.
"The Interpreter" is set primarily in New York, with
the opening scene set in Matobo, a fictional Southern
African republic that is a composite of Zimbabwe and
South Africa (the White inhabitants have both English
and Dutch names). Matobo was "liberated" from its
White colonial oppressors by Doctor Zuwanie, played by
the blue-eyed Mulatto Earl Cameron. The stately
White-haired Zuwanie is supposed to remind us of the
Communist terrorist-statesman Nelson Mandela. (Zuwanie
reminisces about his first visit to New York, when he
was treated like a hero--just like Mandela.)
Once independent, however, Matobo followed the course
of White-created societies from Detroit to Haiti to
Africa itself when handed over to violent, lazy,
stupid, immoral Blacks: poverty, crime, corruption,
and chaos. Doctor Zuwanie, like so many other African
leaders, became a bloody tyrant. His brutality spawned
two rebel movements, which he fought to suppress with
equal brutality. One group is led by Kuman-Kuman
(George Harris), the other by Ajene Xola (Curtiss
Cook). They accuse Zuwanie of "genocide" and "ethnic
cleansing." He accuses them of "terrorism."
The opening scenes of "The Interpreter" are a
horrifying composite of Africa today: a parched dusty
road where a woman carries a load on her head and a
man whose eyes have been gouged out is led along by a
child, a crumbling stadium (built by Whites and ruined
by Blacks) stinking with the rotting corpses of
massacred Blacks, Black children playing soccer who
turn out to be cold-blooded, sadistic killers in Dr.
Zuwanie's militia. Their ball is a severed human head.
It is easy to feel sympathy for the victims of such
brutality. But one has to keep in mind that the
victims would probably have behaved in exactly the
same way, given the chance, and they probably had. Not
every victim is innocent. Not every loser is virtuous.
Savage African civil wars are not a reason for
importing the losers as refugees, to swell the welfare
rolls and prisons of White nations. They are a reason
to exclude Africans from White nations altogether.
I was genuinely surprised by these images of Black
savagery, particularly in a Hollywood movie directed
by a Jew. Moreover, there is not even a hint of
blaming it on Whites. I was also surprised by the
subliminal message that Nelson Mandela might be
something other than the saint he is portrayed to be.
With one exception, all the villains in the movie are
Blacks: brutish, ugly, savage, sinister Blacks. The
White exception is just a mercenary working for
Blacks. With one exception, the heroes of the movie
are all White. The Black exception is just an
incompetent who ends up getting killed. (There is an
Asian who is supposed to be on the right side, but he
comes off as just a bureaucrat. The director, Sydney
Pollack, casts himself as a Secret Service agent, but
is presented as obnoxious and unethical.)
The interpreter in "The Interpreter" is Silvia Broome,
played by Nicole Kidman. She is, for the most part, a
very appealing character: smart, resourceful,
idealistic, and exquisitely Nordic: blonde, blue-eyed,
and very fair. The hero is Tobin Keller, a Secret
Service agent played by Sean Penn. Broome and Keller
meet when she overhears someone talking about
assassinating Doctor Zuwanie while he speaks before
the United Nations, and Keller is assigned to
investigate the case. Keller's boss, played by
director Pollack, coldly decides to use Broome as
bait, and Keller has to watch over the trap to make
sure she is not killed. There are plenty of tense and
suspenseful scenes, a bit of tepid romance, some
shocking violence, some stylish directing, and some
acting. We learn that both Broome and Keller are
haunted by the traumas of losing loved ones. This
tiresome cliché is about as deep an account of
character and motivation as today's movies are capable
of presenting. A lot happens in this movie, much of it
diverting, but none of it really managed to affect me
deeply.
To some extent, the movie tries to obfuscate its
elements of racial realism by presenting the appealing
heroine Broome as a woman who deeply loves Africa and
its indigenous featherless bipeds -- in spite of the
fact that she lost all four of her immediate family to
Black killers! She is supposed to be exemplary, but
any sane person will just think she is crazy. Broome
is presented as a woman who took up arms to fight
Zuwanie for the rights of Blacks and Whites alike.
(This is actually subversive: showing armed White
resistance to Black tyranny as justifiable. But then
again, Broome decides that non-violence is the better
path, hence her decision to be an interpreter at the
United Nations.) It is even mentioned that she was for
a time the lover of the Black revolutionary Ajene
Xola, until it became politically problematic for him
to be associated with a White woman. (Again, setting
aside the miscegenation angle, it is subversive to
show an admirable White to be a victim of Black
racism.) In the end, Broome decides to return to
Matobo, in spite of a budding romance with Penn. She
gives up a strong, decent White man for the lure of
the dark continent. Not a very satisfying ending.
At first I thought that Broome's decision was
psychologically unrealistic. But then it dawned on me,
sadly, that millions of Whites live in Southern
Africa. Most of them were born there. To them it is
home, and they are held there in part by their
attachment to their homelands, while the civilizations
they built are descending into Black savagery. I hope
they can save themselves -- and we can save
ourselves -- before it is too late.
T.C. LYNCH
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