Amman, Jordan, September 1970, also known as the Black September, when
the Palestinians led by PLO leader Arafat tried to overthrow King Hussein
of Jordan. Here, war journalist Sullivan (Bill Paterson) meets a woman
(Tilda Swinton) with no papers whatsoever, and he promises to help her.
However, when she relates her story to him, he finds it at first hard to
believe: She claims she's an extraterrestrial android called Friendship
sent to earth as a peace emmissary, and she was actually to land at the MIT in
Massachusetts, USA, to bring her message to earth people, but lost
direction somewhee along the way. Of course, Sullivan doesn't believe a word at first,
but by and by he finds more and more evidence that might suggest she is
telling the truth. Soon, in their respective hotelrooms, they start
talking about everything, from the conflict at hand to her life on her
planet to typewriters to vacuum cleaners, and they start to develop
feelings for each other. Then finally, Sullivan has acquired (forged)
papers for Friendship so she can leave the country with him ... but by
now, she has started to identify with the Palestinians, who she claims are
as opressed on earth as machines (like herself) are, and rather than
finally make it to MIT, where she reckons she will only be disassembled
for studying, she joins the PLO in their fight. Many years later,
Sullivan and his daughter (Ruby Baker), a whiz kid on the best way to
become a robotics expert, get to see what's on one of Friendship's memory
chips, her only present for him. A blend of political
commentary and science fiction, filmed against the backdrop of the Black
September, but being almost entirely confined to a couple of hotel
rooms - an interesting concept, but also one that is bound to fail ... and
ultimately, Friendship's Death does fail indeed, its political
metaphors are heavy-handed while its sci-fi concepts are a bit silly in
the context, and since the film is confined to a hotel, the conflict it is
based on remains weirdly unreal and theoretical. And the very stagey
directorial effort doesn't help too much either. Having said that, Friendship's
Death isn't all bad, Tilda Swinton and Bill Paterson are capable
enough actors to carry the movie despite its shortcomings, and despie all
its historical and political subtext, the film at least doesn't try to
hard to hammer a message across and at least tries to remain fairly
entertaining throughout. That of course doesn't say that Friendship's
Death is a good movie ... it just could have been way worse.
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