[critical] Promised Land

Steve Butler, a representative of a large energy group, went with Sue Thomason in a small country town. The two colleagues are convinced that because of the economic crisis, the inhabitants could not refuse their lucrative proposal to drill on their land to exploit the energy resources they contain. What looked like a child’s play however get complicated when a respected teacher critical of the project, supported by an environmental activist who clashed with Steve as well on the professional, personal…

Author’s Note

[rating:7/10]

• Release Date : March 27, 2013

• Directed by Gus Van Sant

• With Matt Damon, John Krasiński, Frances McDormand, Rosemarie Dewitt

• Film american

• Duration : 1: 45

• Original title : Promised Land

• Trailer :

Remember the last year of New beginning of Cameron Crowe. Or even of most of his films. A specialist in the lighthearted tone to say a lot about a dramatic subject. In order for the pill to work better. The year 2013 has his film light with it. Yet, Gus Van Sant is known for not being as lightweight, to have a stroke less smooth. The filmmaker offers us a classicism evident. But that classicism is revealed to be intelligent and melancholic at the same time. Therefore, it is not for nothing that this film surfs on the way to New beginning of Cameron Crowe.

Here, it is not a question of restoring the memories of the disappeared, or to reunite a family. But this film brings us a little green message. I say small because it goes in the background throughout the film. Far from the legal entity (the company Overall does not flow) on the modern technology, the film takes the point of view of both parties : the environmentalists and the business. The most intelligent, it is that Gus Van Sant is going to make fun of these two parties. He will say that it is important to preserve the nature and it will say that money is the biggest engine of our society.

It is there that intervenes the comedy. In effect, by calling the company Global, the filmmaker has made a nod to the world (the globe). The industry, where money is the major strength and where it dominates the rest, is changing dramatically in our current society. And there is nothing to be afraid of. It’s moving so fast that we will soon be overcome and that this will destroy everything that we know of beautiful. Leaves to shave our inheritance ; in the film, the legacy equipment would also like to say the legacy of all our ancestors : they have worked very hard and have sweated body and souls for what we have today. For what ? Reduce it to nil.

And Gus Van Sant incorporates the largest force that can stop all this nonsense, man. This human being yet destroyed all the benefit of the money, the power, may be the ultimate solution to this disaster. The man is the precursor of technological change, it is the precursor of the modern political. Gus Van Sant has had the bright idea, with his accomplices, the writers (including Matt Damon, seen in the film of Cameron Crowe last year), to create a relationship between the man and the political system. The man, as it is, with any idea what it stands for, becomes the big bad wolf that it must shoot down. The filmmaker takes an evil pleasure in humiliating these men in the midst of the wonderful landscapes that he films.

The film also has a pleasant side human. Both the lighter side and a burlesque show Frances McDormand (thanks to the Coen brothers) that by the freshness of Matt Damon and John Kransinski. When the feelings and the heart end up talking instead of reason. We then this supplement the question of inheritance and the love of his land. But the human side is also going to expand with the meeting of all the villagers. Whether it be in the gym or in the bar, there is this desire to show that one can achieve in unison. This gathering due to a vote. Think then, as soon as these so-called referendums.

This film we are left, then, as a fable, a cruel thing on the political system in which man embarks. Like what, our ideas are not necessarily the best, and that he should perhaps dig a little deeper. To dig in order to discover what is right for everyone. As this revelation happens at a point in the film, all the barratin of these systems policy is a deception. And beyond a picture of the America of today, the film may extend to a photograph to dizzying heights of the contemporary world. Here seems to us to be the melancholy of Gus Van Sant, although worn by the genius of the plan plan. A melancholy, which he will pass to his characters.

One finds in this film a great opportunity for Gus Van Sant to film his actors. Perhaps this is also what makes this movie mild as good as it. In addition to the speech, and the melancholy that he wears, this film is not a film about a subject. It is especially a film that offers us players. Gus Van Sant is filming his actors in the first place, and it is probably the highest quality that you can find at the cinema. It is for this reason that the concern is most strong in every moment, in spite of the comedy. We take a pleasure to see Matt Damon be humiliating, we appreciate the talent of Frances McDormand, and then the charisma of John Kransinski, and finally to see the beauty of Rosemarie Dewitt.

Finally, Promised Land is a film a lightness that goes a long. Gus Van Sant simplifies its tone usual with the humor. But this does not mean that he speaks of his concern to the present time. Some will be able to shout to the scandal of a lie on the promises made. What does it matter if the sense of community is not completely discovered because the filmmaker, with a little environmental message, lifts the veil on America today and on man’s place in the political system.