Rendition

[GoodMusician 56]

Hey all, so I noticed no one has even mentioned this film or the score to it so I thought I'd bring it up.

Rendition is that movie with my future lover Jake Gyllenhaal, an outstanding performance by Reese Witherspoon, and an amazing-as always-performance by the devine Meryl Streep.

The story is kind of a similar, if not slightly watered down, version of a tale that has broken the news lately about the term "Extraordinary Rendition," which is a term every person reading this should study and look up because this tale, although fictional, is based entirely on the threat and possibility of this very thing happening.

The story goes that a man who, by no fault of his own, on his flight back to the USA from South Africa is detained, isolated, mistreated, abused, and sent to a foreign country to be tortured for information he is not privy to simply because there was a terrorist attack and they think he might possibly be involved.

The scary thing is that this can happen to a US citizen at any moment, they are shipped over seas and for possibly even 3 years without due process, without cause or any formal charges filed, without access to a lawyer, without an expedient trial, without contact with loved ones or anyone at all, are LEGALLY tortured.

This story follows that of many characters: those who torture, those who are tortured, and those who know whats going on and either let it happen or don't. It's a very well done film.

Perhaps one of the most moving scenes is when the wife of the man contacts a friend of hers in DC and tries to find out what happened to her husband. She has proof he was on the plane back from South Africa, but the airport in the US claims that he never arrived which was impossible because of charges he made with his credit card on the plane or something...

She ends up eventually being turned away but is told in secret by his secretary that Witman (played by Meryl Streep) will be there the next day and she knows that this lady would be the one who'd give the order for her husband to have been taken away.

And the confrontation scene... my heart was racing as if I were her, walking up to someone of power, trying to find out what happened to the person I loved, only to be brushed off, ignored, and then break down crying and screaming...

It was the most moving piece of cinema I've seen in years...

An Amazon.com reader describes it as:

"Roger Ebert called it "perfect," and certainly the timing couldn't have been much better: Rendition was released just as the U.S. was debating anew the issue of "extraordinary rendition," a policy (begun under the Clinton administration, accelerated after September 11, 2001) of handing over suspected terrorists to countries that use torture as an interrogation tool. Alas, the movie only rarely fills in the outlines of a prototypical "issue movie," the kind of thing peopled by cardboard characters tracing the patterns of an important, indeed urgent, subject. The plot kicks into gear when an Egyptian-born man (Omar Metwally) is sent to an unnamed North African country where torture is practiced, with the CIA in approval. The film takes a Crash dive through how this affects various people: his pregnant American wife (Reese Witherspoon), the reluctant CIA agent (Jake Gyllenhaal) on the scene, a severe interrogator (Yigal Naor), all the way up to a U.S. terrorism honcho (Meryl Streep) willing to turn a blind eye to the unpleasantness if it stops a terrorist attack. Things spark briefly when Witherspoon enlists an old beau (Peter Sarsgaard) to plead her case with his boss, a U.S. Senator (Alan Arkin), but for the most part director Gavin Hood (Totsi) can't find a way to color in these line drawings, despite the formidable actors doing spirited work. The issue is fully and lucidly explained, but the movie doesn't come alive. --Robert Horton"

I can see what he's saying because there isn't as much character development with some of the characters... but I think that it's becuase of editing. I think they cut out quite a bit to stream line the film. The momentum, however, never ceases and the urgency and frightening realty of the issue is not lost. The film is blunt and honest.

But anyways...

The reason I made this thread is because the first thing I noticed was the music. I've been wanting to get a Duduk for about a month or two now, and the film is predominated by a Duduk duo which is common place (having one play the bass pitch and the other float around over it). Most of the score is very much ethnically based and some of the film does take place in the middle east so obviously it makes sense, but the use of the score is rather refreshing in a time when scores are coming out that are very... bland. This adds a nice flavor to the film and I personally really enjoyed it.

IMDB says the composers were:

Paul Hepker and Mark Kilian

Are any of you familiar with their work? I can see some of the films they've done on IMDB and I guess they work as a team because they seem to work on the same films (and mostly tv shows at that)... but I'm not sure why or what their different talents are or really even know much about them...

I DO want to get the score though.

If you want to listen, go here:

Amazon.com listen to Rendition

Anyone know anything about these composers or anything about them really?