The Constant Gardener | Analysis

The Constant Gardener | Analysis Fernando Meirelless adaptation of John le carres 2001 novel The Constant Gardener is a drama film which is sure to thrill the global audience around the world. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, which includes Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing, and Best Supporting Actress for Rachel Weisz, which she won. The film had a budget of $25 million but it made a huge profit with gross revenue of $82,466,670 proving to be a commercial success among the audience around the world. Story Based on the novel by John Le Carrà ©, The Constant Gardener starts with a murder, as any good mystery film does. British diplomat Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) assigned to Nairobi sees his world fall apart when his wife, activist Tessa Quayle (Rachel Weisz), is found brutally maimed in a remote area of Northern Kenya. His colleagues at the British High Commission, especially close friend Sandy (Danny Huston), believe the usually easy going Justin will quietly let them take care of the situation. Up to this point in his life, Justin has done little but quietly does his melodious job, tend to his gardens, and marry an extraordinary woman. Haunted by his past memories, and sceptical that his wife may have been unfaithful and cheating on him, Justin will no longer sit by submissively. He cannot accept what happened to Tessa, especially when he finds out that the government wants to sweep the whole thing under the rug. It seems Tessa was trying to discover somethingand was perhaps even on the verge of exposing a deadly pharmaceutical conspiracy. So, Quayle embarks on his own investigation, risking his life to uncover the truth and whether he succeeds or stopped under his tracks form the chief outline of the film. Acting Fiennes and Weisz are outstanding in this film. The Oscar winning actor Fiennes Playing Justin steals the show. He captures all the sad beauty of a man mourning for a woman he loved very much but who he also realizes he didnt know all that well. Its almost as if in investigating Tessas murder, Justin finally sees what kind of woman his wife truly wasand falls in love with her all over again. You feel his pain and feel sorry for him. For her part, Weisz has certainly proven she is more than just a sweet face alarmed by disturbed mummies. She expertly portrays a determined social activist driven to help these Kenyan people any way she can, even if it means sacrificing her own personal happiness and life. She in the end sacrifices her own life in order to find the truth and find justice for the Kenyan people. Weisz is radiant in every single shotwhich is rather an accomplishment considering that the actress was nine months pregnant, sweaty and without make-up in many scenes. You often w onder how it is these two characters ever fell for each other to begin with, but thats the true tribute to these fine actors. In their capable hands, they make Justin and Tessas opposites-attract-but-modest love story unquestionable. Danny Huston is a peculiar choice to play Sandy, Justins devious colleague. He struggles with his fake British accent and a better choice of cast would have been a better choice for the character. Direction With The Constant Gardener, Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles proves his surprise Academy Award nomination for directing the scorching City of God wasnt a stroke of luck. The guy obviously knows what hes doing and he provides energetic direction nailing the audience glued to their seats. Meirelles hands us the horrible, heart wrenching plight of the African people, focusing on the hauntingly beautiful Kenya and lovingly detailing its colourful people. Scenes of Tessa walking through barely liveable shantytowns, as bright, seemingly happy children run around her while singing, leaves a very indelible impression. He zooms in on these two people whose love is put to the test because of the circumstances they find themselves in, while wrapping up the narrative in a compact murder mystery, which may or may also involve a conspiracy of global proportions. The Constant Gardener is much more than just a mystery. Its going to make you thinkand think hard. Trivia .The novel was originally banned in Kenya because it depicts corrupt Kenyan officials. . Ralph Fiennes held and operated the camera for Justins point of view in the film. . The filmmakers installed water tanks, a new bridge and a classroom in Kibera, the slum in which the film was shot. They also built a secondary school in the desert of northern Kenya where the final scenes were photographed. My verdict The Constant Gardener is an elegant, absorbing, and suspenseful mystery with rich performances from the leads. Despite an unhurried opening, the energetic direction by Fernando Meirelles and admirable lead performances by Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz make this adapted film an exciting and suspenseful thriller 4 broccolis out of 5 COME BACK FOR LATER The Constant gardener is primarily set in Kenya loilangalani and slums on Kibera a section of Nairobi, Kenya. It follows the lives of a shy low-rung British diplomat Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) who is posted in Kenya and his beautiful young humanitarian activist Tessa (Rachel Weitz). Justin is satisfied to represent his country without questioning his boss. when his wife Tessa and an African man (who he suspects Tessa to be cheating with) are found brutally raped and murdered in a remote area in North Kenya, he did not believe the death reports that they were assaulted and harassed by bandits, and he begins to ask penetrating questions against the activities of the government, much to the astonishment of Sandy Woodrow (Danny Huston) and his other equals at the British high Commission located in Kenya. But as his inspections quickly lead him to an awry trail of blackmail, dishonesty, exploitation, political scandal and global conspiracy, he revives what he represents and what made h im marry and find love for his wife in the first place forms and whether he avenges the death of his wife forms the chief outline in the film For most of the movie, which is an elegant style of flashbacks and foreshadowings, Tessa is dead, murdered in the Kenyan wilds, where she had travelled with a African doctor named Arnold Bluhm (Hubert Koundà ©), who many in the Nairobi community assumed was her lover. In that gossipy world, Tessa was always something of a scandalous woman, pricking the fake civility of cocktail parties with impolite questions about money, authority, hardships and illness of the poor people in Kenya. She favours to spend her time usually in the company of Dr. Bluhm travelling through slums and communities, during her pregnancy, where she was kind of a good figure among the native villagers. After she gets murdered Justin sets out to find who caused the death of his wife and her companion and whether he finds his solution forms the rest of the story. The actors have done a splendid job in my opinion Fiennes as the literal gardener Justin Quayle the perfect dashing and sensitive heartthrob learns how much he loves his wife and he wants to bring the big pharmacy corporation down and bring dirty secrets out. Rachel Weisz is absolutely joyful as Tessa, a brilliant and determined social activist, unwavering in her pursuit to uncover the immoral research methods practiced at the expense of indigent Kenyan citizens. Weisz is radiant in every single shotwhich is quite an accomplishment considering that the actress was nine months pregnant, sweaty and without make-up in many scenes. Danny Huston is a peculiar choice to play Sandy, Justins devious colleague. He struggles with his fake British accent and a better choice of cast would have been a better choice for the character. Despite an unhurried opening, the energetic direction by Fernando Meirelles and admirable lead performances by Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz make this adapted film an exciting and suspenseful thriller My verdict The Constant Gardener is an elegant, absorbing, and suspenseful mystery with rich performances from the leads. Despite an unhurried opening, the energetic direction by Fernando Meirelles and admirable lead performances by Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz make this adapted film an exciting and suspenseful thriller 4 broccolis out of 5

Imagery and Themes in the Epic of Gilgamesh Essay -- Epic Gilgamesh es

Historical Context - Imagery and Themes Rosenberg notes that Gilgamesh is probably the world's first human hero in literature (27). The Epic of Gilgamesh is based on the life of a probably real Sumerian king named Gilgamesh, who ruled about 2600 B.C.E. We learned of the Gilgamesh myth when several clay tablets written in cuneiform were discovered beginning in 1845 during the excavation of Nineveh (26). We get our most complete version of Gilgamesh from the hands of an Akkadian priest, Sin-liqui-unninni. It is unknown how much of the tale is the invention of Sin-liqui-unninni, and how much is the original tale. The flood story, which appears in the Sin-liqui-unninni version, is probably based on an actual flood that occurred in Mesopotamia around 2900 B.C.E. (26). The Sumerian culture influenced the entire Near East (Swisher 13). The success of their culture was dependent on the agricultural viability of the area. Every year there were floods which provided rich silt for successful farming that encouraged the people to stay in the same area year after year instead of migrating to find new areas for crops (19). There are indications that the Sumerians were composed of two different peoples which mingled in the same area. The Semites are believed to have mixed with the Highlanders. The Semites were patriarchal hunters and more warlike than the Highlanders. The Highlanders were matriarchal and peaceful. Swisher suggests that there is evidence of both social groups and that the combination of the two led to changes in the perception of the roles of the gods and goddess as well as the men and women (21). Sumer was originally small groups of people that eventually grew to form cities. As a country it included 13 ... ...der to receive eternal life. The apparent belief in an afterlife which is indicated by the burial with useful objects may show that eternal life is achieved after physical death. The Flood - recounted by Utanapishtim is representative of the purification of human life by the gods. Their transgressions are swept away (with most of the population) and they are reborn into a fresh, new world and relationship with the gods. Ark - the symbol of the gods' love of the humans and their interest in preserving the human race. We also identified five themes in the Epic of Gilgamesh: Conflict between chaos and order, represented by nature and civilization; Man's quest for immortality and knowledge; Dealing with loss; Male bonding/brotherhood; Heroism (man's victory over nature).

Bloody civil war Essay

The final two chapters of the novel, Ike tries to discover and understand the history of his own family and the way in which they had treated the blacks. He even attempts to make amendments to one of them, by sending some money. The brief chronicle that he finds of his family helps him reconstruct some parts of the history. He remembers for example, the little hut in which all the black people were herded together, and the way in which the whites manufactures bleaching substances for the blacks to use so as to change their color: â€Å"[†¦]the square, galleried, wooden building squatting like a portent above the fields whose laborers it still held in thrall ’65 or no and placarded over with advertisements for snuff and cures for chills and salves and potions manufactured and sold by white men to bleach the pigment and straighten the hair of Negroes that they might resemble the very race which for two hundred years had held them in bondage and from which for another hundred years not even a bloody civil war would have set them completely free[†¦.]†(Faulkner, 245) This forced change of hair color is very significant: the author emphasizes the fact that the whites wanted to transform the black and make them as themselves, a race however quite imperfect since it is the one that invented slavery. Neither the land nor the people can be bought, since they have been left to live free by the creator of the world. Man’s possession of land or of slaves only imaginary, since these primary things cannot be bought: â€Å"’Bought nothing. Because He told in the Book how He created the earth, made it and looked at it and said it was all right, and then He made man. He made the earth first and peopled it with dumb creatures, and then He created man to be His overseer on earth[†¦]Because it was never Ikkemotubbe’s fathers’ fathers’ to bequeath Ikkemotubbe to sell to Grandfather or any man because on the instant when Ikkemotubbe discovered, realised, that he could sell it for money, on that instant it ceased ever to have been his forever, father to father to father, and the man who bought it bought nothing. † (247) In the family’s brief chronicle, Ike discovers many of the iniquities that were common at the time, in what regarded the black people. His grandfather had had sons and daughters of the black slaves, and never acknowledged them. Also, the contracts done between the blacks and the whites were invalid, since the black man had no way to claim his rights or to prove them, since he was usually even unable to read: â€Å"and it would seem to the boy that he could actually see the black man, the slave whom his white owner had forever manumitted by the very act from which the black man could never be free so long as memory lasted, entering the commissary, asking permission perhaps of the white man’s son to see the ledger-page which he could not even read, not even asking for the white man’s word, which he would have had to accept for the reason that there was absolutely no way under the sun for him to test it[†¦]†(256) Ike ironically observes the extent of the injustice done to the children that were not acknowledged because they were black, and the way in which they were usually simply given a sum of money to make amends: â€Å"So I reckon that was cheaper than saying My son to a nigger he thought. Even if My son wasn’t but just two words. † (259) Thus, Faulkner’s novel is centered around the idea of the essential freedom given by nature to any creature. The bear is a symbol for this freedom, and his spirit is akin to that of the blacks and Indians: â€Å"[†¦]an old bear, fierce and ruthless not just to stay alive but ruthless with the fierce pride of liberty and freedom, jealous and proud enough of liberty and freedom to see it threatened not with fear nor even alarm but almost with joy, seeming deliberately to put it into jeopardy in order to savor it and keep his old strong bones and flesh supple and quick to defend and preserve it; an old man, son of a Negro slave and an Indian king, inheritor on the one hand of the long chronicle of a people who had learned humility through suffering and learned pride through the endurance which survived the suffering, and on the other side the chronicle of a people even longer in the land than the first. † (Faulkner, 267) The same ideas appear in the short story called That Evening Sun, but the author here emphasizes the barrier that existed between the blacks and the whites. The story, which has the same characters of the Compson family as The Sound and the Fury, is centered on a black servant called Nancy and on her agony at having been left by her husband and the terror that he might return and kill her. Nancy is terribly beaten by the police when she tries to claim her pay from a white man, and then locked up: â€Å"When you going to pay me, white man? When you going to pay me, white man? It’s been three times now since you paid me a cent-‘ Mr. Stovall knocked her down, but she kept on saying, â€Å"When you going to pay me, white man? It’s been three times now since—‘ until Mr. Stovall kicked her in the mouth with his heel and the marshal caught Mr. Stovall back, and Nancy lying in the street, laughing. She turned her head and spat out some blood and teeth and said, ‘It’s been three times now since he paid me a cent. ’†(Faulkner, 289) The story focuses on the impressive agony of the woman and her loneliness, as the whites refuse to comfort her in any way. The prejudices against the blacks are again obvious: as in The Bear, the villagers remark that a black person would never commit suicide, unless under the power of a drug: â€Å"He said that it was cocaine and not whiskey, because no nigger would try to commit suicide unless he was full of cocaine, because a nigger full of cocaine was not a nigger any longer. †(Faulkner, 291) The idea of the white people is that the black have no feelings and no inner life of their own, and that they live mostly like beasts, therefore could never have the impulse to suicide. The woman tries to cling to the children’s company in her distress and her fear of the husband that she thinks will come after her. The recurrent remark that she makes, saying that she is no more than a nigger is very significant. She underlies the fact that she is actually perceived as only a nigger, and that even she feels like that: â€Å"I ain’t nothing but a nigger,† Nancy said. ‘It ain’t none of my fault. ’† (Faulkner, 296) She cannot escape her race, and, although she feels she has an inner life she does not have an identity to associate it with. The last fragment of the story is of utter importance: Quentin, the storyteller remains listening to the sounds made by Nancy after they live her house, and hints at the barrier between the white and the black. The whites merely live her and her problems, as she is not considered to be important enough for further consideration: â€Å"But we could still hear her. She began as soon as we were out of the house, sitting there above the fire, her long brown hands between her knees. We could still hear her when we had crossed the ditch, Jason high and close and little about father’s head. Then we had crossed the ditch, walking out of Nancy’s life. Then her life was sitting there with the door open and the lamp lit, waiting, and the ditch between us and us going on, dividing the impinged lives of us and Nancy. â€Å"(Faulkner, 300) Thus, Faulkner describes the lives of the black and white people in the Southern world with great insight, emphasizing the essential freedom of man as of nature, and the impossibility to possess or reduce them and limit their importance. Works Cited: Abadie, Ann J. Faulkner in Cultural Context. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1997. Clark, Jim. â€Å"On Faulkner. † The Mississippi Quarterly. http://www. questia. com/app/direct/SM. qst Faulkner, William. Collected Stories of William Faulkner. New York: Random House, 1950. — Three Famous Short Novels. New York, Vintage Books, 1958. Singal, Daniel J. William Faulkner: The Making of the Modernist. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. â€Å"William Faulkner†. http://www. kirjasto. sci. fi/faulkner. htm

The Flaw of the Brady Bill essays

The Flaw of the Brady Bill essays The federal Brady Law created an instant background check system meant to track the records of everyone prohibited from possessing firearms: convicted felons, people under a domestic violence restraining order, illegal aliens, drug addicts, dishonorably discharged military personnel, fugitives from justice and certain mentally ill people. The Brady Bill, imposed in February 1994, has been successful of what it was supposed to do. The Bill restricts mentally ill people from getting handguns, but medical records are kept secret, and there is no way of telling who is getting the guns. Is the Brady Bill working like it was planned? A priest and a parishioner were shot dead during church service in New York. Fr Lawrence Penzes, 50, had just finished his homily at Our Lady of Peace Church at Lynbrook on Long Island, when a gunman burst in and opened fire. Doctors say Fr Lawrence probably died at the altar. The other victim was Eileen Tosner, 73, a Lynbrook resident who attended Mass every morning. The suspect was Peter J Troy, 34. He was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and one count of attempted murder. The police said he has a record of psychiatric illness. (Independent Catholic Bergin, March 2002) Scott Harlan Thorpe, 40, of Smartville was a client of the outpatient mental health clinic where he started shooting just before noon Wednesday, killing two people and wounding a third, said Nevada County Sheriff Keith Royal. Thorpe then drove to a restaurant in near Grass Valley, 50 miles northeast of Sacramento, and shot and killed the manager and wounded a cook because he thought the restaurant was poisoning him, Royal said. The accused killer was undergoing monthly mental health counseling for his agoraphobia, his fear of being in public places, said Gary Dalbey, a neighbor who lived across the road from Thorpe in rural Smartville. (The Californian NC times Associated Press 1/12/01) ...

Biography of Bill Gates

Biography of Bill Gates Free Online Research Papers William (Bill) H. Gates III is co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation, the worlds leading provider of software for personal computers. Bill Gates was born on October 28, 1955. He and his two sisters grew up in Seattle. Their father, William H. Gates II, is a Seattle attorney. Mary Gates, their late mother, was a schoolteacher, University of Washington regent and chairwoman of United Way International. Gates attended public elementary school before moving on to the private Lakeside School in North Seattle. It was at Lakeside that Gates began his career in personal computer software, programming computers at age 13. In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman, where he lived down the hall from Steve Ballmer, who is now Microsofts president. While at Harvard, Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer the MITS Altair. BASIC was first developed by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz at Dartmouth College in the mid-1960s. In his junior year, Gates dropped out of Harvard to devote his energies full-time to Microsoft, a company he had started in 1975 with his boyhood friend Paul Allen. Guided by a belief that the personal computer would be a valuable tool on every office desktop and in every home, they began developing software for personal computers. Gates foresight and vision regarding personal computing have been central to the success of Microsoft and the software industry. Gates is actively involved in key management and strategic decisions at Microsoft, and plays an important role in the technical development of new products. Much of his time is devoted to meeting with customers and staying in contact with Microsoft employees around the world through e-mail. Under Gates leadership, Microsofts mission is continuously to advance and improve software technology, and to make it easier, more cost-effective and more enjoyable for people to use computers. The company is committed to a long-term view, which is reflected in its investment of some $2.6 billion for research and development during the current fiscal year. In 1995 Gates wrote The Road Ahead, his vision of where information technology will take society. Co-authored by Nathan Myhrvold, Microsofts chief technology officer, and Peter Rinearson, The Road Ahead held the No. 1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list for seven weeks, and remained on the list for a total of 18 weeks. Published in more than 20 countries, the book sold more than 400,000 copies in China alone. In 1996, while strategically redeploying Microsoft to take advantage of the emerging opportunities created by the Internet, Gates thoroughly revised The Road Ahead to reflect his view that interactive networks are a major milestone in human communication. The paperback second edition also has become a bestseller. Gates is donating his proceeds from the book to a non-profit fund that supports teachers worldwide who are incorporating computers into their classrooms. In addition to his passion for computers, Gates is interested in biotechnology. He sits on the board of the ICOS Corporation and is a shareholder in Chiroscience Group of the United Kingdom and its wholly owned subsidiary, Chiroscience RD Inc. (formerly Darwin Molecular) of Bothell, Wash. He also founded Corbis Corporation, which is developing one of the largest resources of visual information in the world a comprehensive digital archive of art and photography from public and private collections around the globe. Gates also has invested with cellular telephone pioneer Craig McCaw in Teledesic, a company that is working on an ambitious plan to launch hundreds of low-orbit satellites around the Earth to provide a worldwide two-way broadband telecommunications service. In the dozen years since Microsoft went public, Gates has donated more than $800 million to charities, including $200 million to the Gates Library Foundation to help libraries in North America take advantage of new technologies and the Information Age. In 1994 Gates established the William H. Gates Foundation, which supports a variety of initiatives of particular interest to Gates and his family. The focus of Gates philanthropy is in four areas: education; world public health and population; non-profit, civic and arts organizations; and Puget Sound-area capital campaigns. Bill and Melinda French Gates were married on January 1, 1994. They have one child, Jennifer Katharine Gates, who was born in 1996. Research Papers on Biography of Bill GatesThe Project Managment Office SystemRiordan Manufacturing Production PlanOpen Architechture a white paperNever Been Kicked Out of a Place This NiceBionic Assembly System: A New Concept of SelfPersonal Experience with Teen PregnancyMarketing of Lifeboy Soap A Unilever ProductAnalysis of Ebay Expanding into AsiaDefinition of Export QuotasTwilight of the UAW

Contemporary Media's Representation of Philosophies, Ideologies, and PowerPoint Presentation

Contemporary Media's Representation of Philosophies, Ideologies, and Theories - PowerPoint Presentation Example With the help of Jim Gordon, Batman and the District Attorney Harvey Dent set out to eliminate the criminal infrastructure that is operating out of the streets. Despite a strong partnership between the two, they find themselves fighting against a reign of chaos that has been unleashed by a rising mastermind in the criminal world, who is known amongst the terrorized people as ‘The Joker’. From the very beginning, the joker succeeds in showing to the world, a horrifying version of evil where all morality is shredded to dust and replaced with lawlessness and hatred. Others associated with the criminals have long been gone, but the name of the Joker remains in the minds of the people especially due to the ambiguity and glamour with which his evil comes with. One could not rely on virtually anything he said and he relishes at the ease with which he gets people including Dent to break rules. He enjoys destroying the people and civic society simply for the sake of witnessing evil. What is good and truth? Why do good guys need to play by the rules when others don’t? these are some of the questions that beg for an answer from this movie, which set it apart as something that has a deeper impact on the viewer than regular action movies. If one were to ask about the ideal way to select and watch a movie, then the Dark Knight would come to be the first option. Many a times, we question the fact that yes, a movie can be quite entertaining, but what message did it help convey to us? The Dark knight has pulled off the trick by attempting to answer major issues connected to morality and has at the same time made every effort to entertain the viewer. The movie has tried to provide answers to three varying answers to our concerns over what is good and the way people should live in a society. The first way of living is according to the path chosen by the Joker i.e., a world sans rules, where all that matters is power and where society is

Marketing - Med-I-Paint Ltd Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Marketing - Med-I-Paint Ltd - Essay Example MIP serves the continents with its reusable products such as sleep knit, traditional bedding, linen protection clothing, clothing protection, breathable protection, pillows and duvets, bed accessories, laundry bags, laundry equipments, and towels among others from its international clientele mostly located in Canada, Portugal and Germany (MIP UK Inc., 2012). This paper will focus on the key operations of MIP with the objective to assess its strategies. In this regards, the organisational culture perceived by MIP and its quality management initiatives will also be taken into account in this paper. The discussion will also intend to identify the various challenges faced by MIP in dealing with its operations, especially in the UK market. Organisational Culture in MIP The organisational culture is often regarded as a collection of perceived values, standards, and behaviours shared by its employees that control the way of interacting with each other. The organisational culture of MIP focu ses on the motivated people who are passionate about their tasks, as was stated by the Human Resource Director of the organisation, Gail Perowne. It can be noted that the organisational culture in MIP is developed in a way so that the employees can support the organisational growth productively. ... Organisation culture is the way in which the entire workforce performs the tasks contributing to the overall organisational productivity. In this process, the employees fundamentally perform tasks related with problem solving, conflict and query resolutions, and customer handling as well as efficiently dealing with the individual members within the organisation (MIP UK Inc., 2012). The organisation should involve with some functional activities to maintain a suitable culture within the organisation which can be regarded as the behavioural control encouraging stability and providing source of identity. Social norms are one of the most compulsory and most obvious elements of cultural control mechanisms. A social norm is basically a behavioural expectation that the people will proceed in a specified way for a particular situation (Bicchieri & et. al., 2011). It is in this context that culture is a quite strong force in the organisation, which is consciously passed among the incoming emp loyees within the organisation. It plays a vital role in reflecting the true nature and personality of an organisation. The organisational culture involves the employees, the customers, the suppliers, and the community which MIP follows in a way maintaining the company ahead on its productivity to generate a good position at the international dais (MIP UK Inc., 2012). Quality Management in MIP The elements of quality control show the quality of all existing factors which are involved with the production of any plant or any organisation. Elements such as control, job management, task specification process, performance criteria and identification of previous records among others play a major role in quality control aspects of MIP. Furthermore, soft