In search of a perfect world: GRAN TORINO

Rating: 10/10 (30 September 2009)

The old and rude Walt Kowalski, a veteran of the Korean War, has never stopped fighting. Lives permanently in the trench, against everything and everyone, friends and family. At the funeral of his wife listens quietly frantic chatter of her two children, or rebuked with steadfast gaze behavior brought his little nephew. Also responds poorly to a novice priest who, he said in a jurisdiction continues to preach the life and death: Yeah, what does he know of the death, so young and inexperienced in life? Walt lives in a suburban home, in a multi-ethnic neighborhood, surrounded by Asian neighbors who did not turn either one word or a gesture, but instead looks with contempt. The attempted theft of his prized model Ford Gran Torino in 1972, will trigger indelible impact. Now, regardless of any preamble, it should first be stated that films of Clint Eastwood is openly ideological and symbolic. It's inevitable. Which, for some, may be understood as synonymous with a political camp: and it is also true, it should be noted, than it is now well known to its republican militancy. But Clint Eastwood is far from being the spokesman of a reactionary right. With "Gran Torino", signed one of his works more morally and civilly committed. Complementary to his movies. In fact, Walt Kowalski is nothing but a like William Munny Unforgiven, he was never forgiven (by himself), he fights his demons, he continues to water down irretrievably in her painful memories of war and never forgotten, is waving the flag at stars and stripes, tries to mask his loneliness through the 'stubbornness in the eyes of others to enjoy. "Gran Torino" is the most striking example of contemporary western, where the yard of a home is a representation of a border to monitor and protect from enemies, no longer Indian but Chinese, blacks, Mexicans: the border as metaphor own territory, their land, but it is so unfair and wrong to enlarge their space? Observe closely with more empathy? Grant other but of course, remain themselves? This is the parable of existential Eastwood. There is no time for a 44 magnum, Inspector Callahan is tired of shooting, not that he lost his temper, who has just adapted to the times. The Justicialist is synonymous collective irresponsibility. Frustrates humanism. The myth of the superman does nothing but strengthen the incivility and ignorance. Discrimination against other races is simply the product of a culture of hate: one must first know in depth, since only the knowledge and understanding can fulfill a sense of loss of an entire nation. Walt Kowalski is a man alone, without anyone's friendship with a girl and her brother, an ethnic Hmong is flourishing in him a sense of belonging in fact, that seemed lost. It is visibly present in this magnificent character that figure of "father missing" that there was also Frankie Dunn in Million Dollar Baby, the closeness with another person ends up inevitably determine their own destiny, personal choices (the intense final scene, marked the rhythm of a duel western) arising from the feelings you have for another person, the right and wrong are very thin lines are often difficult to choose and go, and where there is life lies death. That Eastwood is an exhausting research in a perfect world, why is a film so profoundly ideological: his ideals, however, break the demystification of a country, America, your country, which has lost every shred of innocence, where even the relationship with God is made difficult and sometimes impossible. Very well acted, featuring a classic and impeccable direction, a photograph of a dry and beautiful, and enriched with a scathing humor and intelligent, "Gran Torino" is presented as an extraordinary moral fable, engaging and sincere: a masterpiece of form and content that has evaded any naively optimistic hopes in the final with a sense of hope, a message of justice, a call for tolerance. Someone can talk about rhetoric of anti rhetoric. Quintessence of thought Eastwood, instead: pure, ethical, tangible.