In "The Constant Gardener,"
an Endgame in Africa

By Esther Iverem
SeeingBlack.com Editor and Film Critic

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At first glance, "The Constant Gardener," a disquieting tale of greed and murder, would seem to tell a story about Africa and African people. In reality, however, it is a tale, only the latest one, of dashing and daring Brits entering the "dark continent" on missions of intrigue and danger.

Our daring couple this time is made up of Justin Quayle, played by Ralph Fiennes, and his wife Tessa, played by Rachel Weisz (known to most of us as the chick from "The Mummy" series—another very unfortunate chronicle of Brits in Africa.) While Justin is a stiff diplomat and yes-man, Tessa has no yes-woman in her whatsoever. When the couple travels to Northern Kenya, where Justin works as a representative for the British government, Tessa works with a health service providing care to those living in the region's squalid ghettos. Through that work, she learns that the area's poor are being used, without their knowledge, as guinea pigs to test a new drug.

As it turns out, a little bit of such knowledge can be a dangerous thing when international corporations, investments and huge profits are on the line. One thing that "The Constant Gardener" does well is depict the good old boy network that often links those heading big business with those heading big government. Tessa finds herself at odds with the good old boys and in extreme danger. Eventually, so does Justin, the mild-mannered diplomat who has shown the most passion for tending his garden. The crisis forces this Clark Kent to don his tight shirt with the big "S" on the chest. Justin Quayle, played movingly by Fiennes, is smart and focused as he crosses continents to solve the mystery of the drugs. Through his actions, and through flashbacks to the times spent with his wife, we see and feel the love he has for her and how, in the name of love and grief, he peels away layers of good-government-job insulation and naivety.

Just as in so many Brits-in-Africa movies of the past, "The Constant Gardener" based on the novel by John Le Carré, takes brave Brits from a place of safety and civility to an African place of unflinching misery, violence, inhumanity and death. While delivering a stern warning about the dangers of activism, it lauds the persona of the straight-laced bureaucrat who is drawn into danger because of someone else's activism but who is willing to face that danger, or even pay the ultimate price, because of a deep sense of integrity.

Movies like these, from way back in the day, such as "David Livingstone" and the laughable "Sanders of the River" with Paul Robeson, to James Bond movies, to "The English Patient," to even today's "Lara Croft Tomb Raider" series, form their own narrative about culture and history, and all from the perspective of White Europeans or Americas. What is presented in "The Constant Gardener," directed by Fernando Meirelles ("City of God"), is a sort of endgame where little is depicted on the continent except for mounds of garbage and people who are considered to be garbage people with no will, agency—and certainly no daring—to fight European or American hegemony. If time has had any impact on this long-running cinematic narrative, we can say that now, in this endgame, there is equal opportunity corruption and equal opportunity to be a savage.

Iverem's review of "The Constant Gardener" also appeared on www.BET.com. Esther Iverem's new book of poems, Living in Babylon, will be released by Africa World Press this fall.

— September 2, 2005

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