I shall continue with my “themed” film commentaries. This set, obviously, has the word “candidate” in the movies’ titles, and all involve quite reluctant individuals thrown into the election circus and get involved in all the politics and image-building behind it.

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (2004). This film is about Gulf War veterans Ben Marco (Denzel Washington) and Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) more than a decade after the war. It is election season, and due to his fame as a war hero and due to his over-supportive domineering senator mother (played by Meryl Streep), Raymond is catapulted from being a congressman to being poised as the US’ next vice-president. Ben, however, starts complaining to his military superiors about recurring nightmares and begins to question what had really happened in Kuwait that prompted him to recommend Raymond to receive the highest military honor. As it turns out, events didn’t actually happen the way they remembered them to have happened, and soon, Ben discovers the covert involvement of a powerful corporation who make profit with war, in their secret effort to install a president that would ensure their corporate success.

This was exhibited in theaters at a time when the US is still at war in Iraq (oh, they still are) and Bush was up for reelection, so this film had some political intrigue with it when it was shown. Manchurian comes from the name Manchurian Global, the powerful corporation (that makes tanks, guns, war equipment, etc.) that was in a covert plan to install Raymond as the next president. It pretty much manifests what most probably happens in real life, with Halliburton and Eron ensuring that the war business will prosper for more years.

The problem with many of the reviews I’ve read about the film is that they all compare it to its predecessor, because this film is actually a remake of a previous 1962 movie. I, however, have seen this ahead, and I particularly found the premise intriguing and the execution, especially the leads’ acting, quite remarkable.

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962). The earlier Manchurian Candidate film has a preposterous premise. Unlike the later version of the film, the earlier Manchurian Candidate was set during the Cold War, in a time right after the Korean conflict and at a time when US Sen. Joseph McCarthy was spreading paranoia about communism and communist infiltration of the US government. If in the later film, it was a powerful corporation that was manipulating the leads, in the earlier film, it is an international assembly of communists trying to infiltrate the US government and install a communist-sympathizer as president. The Manchuria in this film comes from Manchuria in China itself, the venue where the communist assembly started manipulating the minds of the American war veterans. Its premise is absurd, but I guess it was okay at that time as it really reflected the paranoia of that era.

Many reviews praise this film as one of the best (American) political thrillers of the century. Perhaps it was because of the direction, of the daring premise, of the acting? But I couldn’t remove the thought that the story is really absurd from the rest of the film. I didn’t appreciate this one that much.

THE CANDIDATE (1972). Bill McKay (Robert Redford) is the son of California’s governor and an environmental lawyer of sorts with little interest in politics. He (primarily because of his last name and his good looks) is pressured into running for the Senate to go against the popular and old conservative incumbent, with the assurance from the political image-builders that he will lose anyway, so he can say whatever liberal ideas he wants with nothing to lose. As the campaign progresses, however, he finds himself being told what to do and eventually manipulated into saying moderated versions of his real intentions. Soon enough, opinion polls reveal that he gaining momentum with his packaged answers and is poised to give the popular incumbent a neck and neck fight in the elections. Bill’s backers then decide that they want him to win after all. In the end, Bill comes to a realization that he had become what he didn’t want himself to be in the beginning.

This is a brilliant film showcasing the complexity of image-building of politicians and sometimes the spins, the manipulation and the hypocrisy behind it all, especially in the mainstream. In a way I personally understand how it is, having been a candidate and a candidate manager myself in UP campus politics. Needless to say, I enjoyed the film.