Title: The Card Counter
Director: Paul Schrader
Language: Inglese
Running time:112'
It is quite ironic to find a movie that was shot more than a year ago so contemporary. It is impossible to believe that Paul Schrader could predict how the American war in Afghanistan could turn out while writing the movie, but The Card Counter actually highlight the lies of patriotism that hide behind the American wars overseas. Actually dedicated to the war in Iraq, we can find in The Card Counter the painful irony of the conclusion of the American war in Afghanistan.
The movie tells the story of William Tillich (Oscar Isaac), that now goes by Will Tell, a veteran of the war in Iraq started after the tragedy of 9/11. He was part of a program that interrogated Iraqi prisoners by torturing them at Abu Ghraib, managed by Major John Gordo (Willem Dafoe). He was convicted for the tortures and spent eight years in prison. Here, he learned how to count cards and now plays blackjack and poker at low stakes from casino to casino. Since he got out of prison, he has a quite distorted sense of freedom, which to him consist of a rigid routine in which he sleeps in motel rooms that he makes completely aseptic by covering everything in white sheets he brings in his suitcase, and writes a journal, told to the audience in VoiceOver, where the topic of his crimes comes up continuously. He meets La Linda (Tiffany Haddish) at one casino, who manages a stable for gamblers to be financed by backers and play for higher stakes. She tries to recruit him, but fails. We can immediately see that a spark lights between them, but their relationship will only come up marginally through out the movie. Will goes to play to a casino where a conference on the security-industry is being held, and sits in a speech by Major John Gordo. Here, he gets approached by Cirk (Tye Sheridan), the son of one his colleagues that has actually shot himself rather than live with the guilt of the atrocities they committed. Cirk blames his father’s mental illness and final suicide on Gordo’s interrogation techniques and wants Will to help him with his plan of killing the Major. Will takes Cirk under his wing, taking him in as his travel companion, and, once he learns about all of his debt, he decides to take up La Linda’s offer to play for backers in order to help the guy. When Will thinks that Cirk has desisted from his plan of killing Gordo, he lets him go with the excuse of reconciling with his mother. However, Cirk tries to kill the Major, and ends up getting shot. To avenge him, Will decides to fulfil the boy’s wish of Gordo’s death.
Will’s obsession with playing cards is actually an excuse to keep his mind on his guilt rather off of it. He contemplates his crimes over and over, with a rage that builds up against the country in the name of which he has committed them. We see the distortion of Will’s guilt in the flashbacks representing the tortures: they are completely distorted images, with saturated colours and loud metal music. Will is so trapped in his guilt that these scenes are portrayed as if they were mounted inside an unescapable cylinder, with rounded edges moving circularly. The guilt that Will feels towards the crimes he has committed highlights the fact that he enlisted because of the lies of patriotism and the idea of exporting democracy that the United States exalts when talking about their wars. The intention of the movie is clearly to call out the lies that stand behind the idea of these wars for peace and to show what they really create: the corrupting militarisation of the American society. This is highlighted by a rival poker player known as USA Man, who embodies even more the crazy American patriotism felt by those who haven’t fought a day for their country and that Will despises and that he, in a sense, feels are part of the cause of these senseless wars.
Despite its slow rhythm, that almost allows the spectator to get distracted while watching the movie, The Card Counter is actually a loud movie that tries to ask the audiences, of all nations, to really think about whether these wars for peace, led by the United States but not only, are really what they say they are about. Schrader wants the spectator to ask themselves whether we really want to believe the painful lie that these wars create or if we are going to wake up to their true horrors.
Comments