The Times bfi
London Film Festival 2004

The Manchurian Candidate
Jonathan Demme

Toby Marshall

There is a tendency in celluloid history for creative returns to halve every time a cinematic idea is reused. Jonathan Demme's distinctive remake of The Manchurian Candidate thankfully bucks this trend. It equals, and in some respects surpasses, John Frakenheimer's celebrated Cold War satire. Like the original, it effectively targets the political anxieties of liberal America. Unlike the original, it plays its material straight, opting for emotional intensity instead of black humour.

Denzel Washington plays Major Ben Marco, a Desert Storm veteran with an initially certain memory of his last campaign. He thinks he led his company on a recce behind Iraqi lines. He thinks he was ambushed by enemy fighters. He thinks he was knocked unconscious. He thinks he and most of his squad were saved by the heroics of Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber). But whilst all the survivors have identical, remarkably identical, memories of this event, Marco feels that something doesn't quite fit. Shaw, the son of an elite political family, wasn't known for his bravery. In fact the more gung-ho grunts in his unit used to mock his timidity.

Marco's suspicions are confirmed some years later when he encounters Al Melvin (Jeffrey Wright), a member of his team who appears to be suffering from an acute post-traumatic disorder. At first Marco dismisses Melvin's fantastic ramblings, but these tales of torture and brainwashing resembles a nightmare he's repeatedly experienced himself. Marco decides to contact Shaw, who is now standing as a Vice Presidential candidate on a hard-line anti-terror ticket.

Initially the brusque Shaw dismisses Marco. But he too has his doubts, so at their next meeting they talk. Shaw reveals that he has no memory of the moment for which he was awarded a Medal of Honour. And he also feels manipulated, by his ambitious and overbearing mother, Senator Eleanor Shaw (Meryl Streep). Behind all of this looms Manchurian Global, a transnational investment fund known for its unethical business practices, as well as its links with the military and political establishment.

By now the real-life parallels and the nature of the conspiracy might be clear. Manchurian Global's business tactics echo Dick Cheney's former company Halliburton and its alleged plans to take over democracy. And whilst Shaw is a notably more polished performer than Bush, his authoritarian 'freedom from fear' politics, and political lineage, are meant to recall this president.

Sadly, like most conspiracy theories, the political analysis offered by The Manchurian Candidate is too neat to be credible, and consequently does more to obscure than illuminate contemporary American politics. Yet this doesn't diminish its dramatic force. That isn't a product of its story, which follows the standard loner-threatened-by-enigmatic-antagonist convention. Or even the well-worn, but effectively deployed, cinematic devices: it's all close-ups, distressed camera angles and menacing low frequency soundtrack. Rather it is Denzel Washington's convincing performance that draws us into this demented political world. Washington's plays Marco as a hesitant, unstylish and awkward everyman who is struggling to comprehend a power that is always just at the edge of his perception. Significantly, this is reminiscent of Frank Sinatra's Marco in the original, although it has more weight, maybe because it is reinforced by the more sincere tone of the newer film.

Perhaps the defining image of The Manchurian Candidate comes in the penultimate scene. We are at political convention, crowds are roaring, triumphant music is blaring and the politicos are trying to look spontaneous on stage. We then cut to an overhead shot of the conference director who is choreographing this 'real' event. This expresses a truth figuratively. After Iraq, the dodgy dossier, and all the rest, many feel that hidden forces shape politics. It is this popular sentiment that The Manchurian Candidate effectively plays upon and represents.