"The Last Face" is a film produced in the mode of mid-twentieth-century European art films like "Hiroshima Mon Amour." The combination of romance with the backdrop of war atrocities had good dramatic potential, but failed to connect the viewer with the historical details of war-torn Africa at the turn of the twenty-first century.
The principal setting is Liberia and the South Sudan. It is there that Dr. Wren Petersen (Charlize Theron) and Dr. Miguel Leon (Javier Bardem) meet, fall in love, and find their relationship affected by the devastation of the casualties and refugees of African civil strife.
The major shortcoming of the film is that the social and political forces at work in Africa are never examined. The premise is the chaos of African civilization, and the film offers a concatenation of scenes in different countries of south Africa. The scenes are brutally honest in the violence, and the filmmakers seek to set them in contrast with the natural beauty of Africa. In those choices, the film flounders in abstraction, as opposed concrete issues affecting the subcontinent of Africa.
The love relationship of the two doctors was not well developed either. The lines of dialogue seemed forced and artificial, as when Wren exclaims, "I could not in those days see God for his creatures" or "So much of the world today has been parted from its dreams." These arty proclamations are not character-driven, but sound like they are coming directly from the computer keyboard of the screenwriter.
The plight of the refugees and the dedication of the humanitarian medical workers were admirably presented in a film that never rose above the level of a paean. Dr. Wren receives a standing ovation when she speaks another pretentious line that "sometimes a face is an illusion" before a large gathering at a highbrow fundraising event.
For the more down-to-earth audience of the film, this set speech, which frames the entire film, sounds too pompous and too abstract for anyone interested in learning about the gritty realities of a troubled continent.
The principal setting is Liberia and the South Sudan. It is there that Dr. Wren Petersen (Charlize Theron) and Dr. Miguel Leon (Javier Bardem) meet, fall in love, and find their relationship affected by the devastation of the casualties and refugees of African civil strife.
The major shortcoming of the film is that the social and political forces at work in Africa are never examined. The premise is the chaos of African civilization, and the film offers a concatenation of scenes in different countries of south Africa. The scenes are brutally honest in the violence, and the filmmakers seek to set them in contrast with the natural beauty of Africa. In those choices, the film flounders in abstraction, as opposed concrete issues affecting the subcontinent of Africa.
The love relationship of the two doctors was not well developed either. The lines of dialogue seemed forced and artificial, as when Wren exclaims, "I could not in those days see God for his creatures" or "So much of the world today has been parted from its dreams." These arty proclamations are not character-driven, but sound like they are coming directly from the computer keyboard of the screenwriter.
The plight of the refugees and the dedication of the humanitarian medical workers were admirably presented in a film that never rose above the level of a paean. Dr. Wren receives a standing ovation when she speaks another pretentious line that "sometimes a face is an illusion" before a large gathering at a highbrow fundraising event.
For the more down-to-earth audience of the film, this set speech, which frames the entire film, sounds too pompous and too abstract for anyone interested in learning about the gritty realities of a troubled continent.