The Cinema Lounge

Departures Leaves Harry Behind at "Coming Attractions Trailer Night Summer 2009"

By Cheryl Dixon, DC Film Society Member

Surprise, surprise, in this much anticipated season of the summer blockbuster, the trailer for Japanese indie flick and Filmfest DC Opening Night Film, Departures, delivered the knockout punch to worthy contender, Harry Potter & the half-blood Prince, the sixth installment of the famed series. DC Film Society fans may recall that previous Harry trailers have always won the popularity contest. However, this time, 200, a record number of, attendees at the Coming Attractions, Summer 2009 Trailer Night program held on May 19 at Landmark’s E Street Cinema, counted Harry down.

Attendees enjoyed the always witty and insightful commentary on the trailers made by our fave co-hosts and film critics Mighty Joe Barber and Kill Bill Henry. And the more vocal attendees got to actively participate in the no-holds-barred, opinion fest about 33 trailers for this summer’s (and in a few instances, this fall’s) sizzling hot releases as well. We promised to kick the summer heat and the recession blues. If you liked what you saw in the trailers, why not enjoy the cool comfort of your local theatre and get in to see the movies? Filmfest DC Opening Night patrons already know, take three hankies to Departures and weep.

Here are the rules: the audience rates each trailer on both its entertainment value and whether it more or less generates interest in seeing the movie. There’s an informal applause-meter to capture the enthusiasm and a formal ballot on which attendees can select from a 0-5 rating scale. Six general film categories were chosen, from which the audience selects the best trailer* within each category and finally votes for the “best of the best” trailer overall. Informal results indicated the finalists were: The Hurt Locker, Taking Woodstock, Harry Potter & the Half-blood Prince, Departures, Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian, and Inglorious Bastards with Departures as the evening’s winner overall.

Stay tuned, the formal balloted results will be revealed soon!

Free movie promotional items were plentiful: lots of free movie posters, T-shirts, CDs, DVDs, books; free soda and popcorn; and absolutely fabulous raffle prizes, including movie tickets were on hand.

Thanks to the DC Film Society Directors and Coordinating Committee for putting together this twice-annual event, especially Michael Kyrioglou, Jim Shippey, Karrye Braxton, Billy Coulter, Cheryl Dixon, Cheryl Fine, Annette Graham, Larry Hart, Charles Kirkland, Jr., Ky Nguyen, Adam Spector, and all volunteers. Special thanks to Joe Barber, Bill Henry, Allied Advertising, Landmark’s E Street Cinema & staff, Terry Hines & Assoc., and all participating film studios.

Joe & Bill’s general remarks included commentary on the target movie audience (“boys,” aged 12-30). These are the repeat box-office moviegoers. Some demographics to chew on…. The people will decide what movies they will ultimately choose to see. Smart movie marketing will influence and attempt to persuade. The trailers play a vital role, but ultimately, box office often hinges on giving the people what they want. Remember, attendees, if you liked what you saw in the trailers, go see the movies. Missed our event? Here’s what you missed; hunker down in the cool comfort of your local theatre and take a peek at what’s in store:

People Who Deserve Better Careers Than They Got

Adam (Fox Searchlight). Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne are lovers encountering and surmounting barriers involved with illness. Love conquers all.

Cheri (Miramax). Michelle Pfeiffer plays the ultimate cougar as the courtesan falls in love with boy-toy Rupert Friend whose mother played by Kathy Bates is her nemesis. Director Stephen Frears (“The Queen”) works magic with a screenplay based on a Colette novel. The trailer looks gorgeous. Possible Oscar nomination for artistic direction for this early twentieth-century period piece.

Extract (Miramax). Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, and Saturday Night Live’s Kristen Wiig, star in a comedy about a harried boss and his employees.

500 Days of Summer (Fox Atomic). Joseph Gordon Leavitt and Zooey Deschanel star in a romantic comedy about unrequited love.

*The Hurt Locker (Summit). Guy Pearce, Anthony Mackie, Ralph Fiennes star in a movie about the Iraq War. The audience discussion focused on whether this would be THE Iraq War movie that folks would go to see….

The Proposal (Buena Vista). Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds star respectively as the boss and her assistant whom she has to pretend to marry. Attendees thought that this is a typical Bullock vehicle, a cute, sweet, but predictable, movie…we’ve seen this one before….

Women of Page and Screen

I Love You, Beth Cooper (Fox Atomic). This is a story of teen angst. The nerd decides to go for it, to proclaim his love for the high school hottie and she (Hayden “Heroes” Panettiere) decides to return his affections. Hilarity follows…as he pursues the girl of his dreams and experiences the night of his life.

Julie & Julia (Sony/Columbia). Writer/Director Nora Ephron combines two true life books featuring food/talk show hostess Julia Child and wanna-be Julie Powell portrayed by the uber-talented Meryl Steep and her “Doubt” co-star, the formidably talented Amy Adams. The audience was dazzled by the star power and has great expectations for this one….

My Sister’s Keeper (New Line). Abigail Breslin takes on her parents who have enlisted her genes in the battle to keep her older sister, Sofia Vassilieva (“Ariel Dubois” from TV show “Medium”), alive in her battle with leukemia. Writer Jodi Picoult’s book comes to life.

*Taking Woodstock (Focus). Emile Hirsh, Live Schreiber, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Eugene Levy hang out in the Catskills during that summer of love featuring that phenomenal concert called “Wood stock.” Peace, man…those who recall this time loved the trailer, those who were too young to recall seemed to enjoy the nostalgia nontheless. Attendees were intrigued.

The Peter Pan Syndrome Film Fest

The Brothers Bloom (Summit). Rachel Weisz, Mark Ruffalo, Adrien Brody are hilarious con men on one last con game in Jersey. This one feels a lot like “Confidence.” The Mark, the Player, the Muscle, the Belgian. Sounds like “Confidence” too. Attendees laughed out loud.

The Hangover (Warner Bros.). Justin Bartha, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis , and sizzling hottie Bradley Cooper, star as three groomsmen and the groom doing what guys do in Vegas at the bachelor party festivities for the groom just before the wedding – get blind-drunk. The trouble is when they wake up two days later, the groom is missing, and the remaining three have absolutely no idea why a tiger and baby are in the room. This trailer was super-hilarious, especially the clip of Mike Tyson singing along to his favorite part of a Phil Collins/Genesis song. Definitely a guy flick, but it looked sufficiently hilarious, no freakin’ hilarious , or wicked hilarious, for all. The trailer received HUGE laughter and applause. This one’s a contender.

*Harry Potter & the Half-blood Prince (Warner Bros.). “Harry, the past holds a dark secret.” Hey, the gang’s all here! Harry Potter returns for his sixth year at Hogwarts as the now-growing up teens encounter new challenges: new teachers, a potion book, uncover more secrets about he who has no name, and fall in and out of love. Muggles and wizards alike will enjoy this one with more A plus special effects and a good story to boot…the audience is anticipating the movie release and the exciting trailer definitely teases and effectively builds up suspense. We know we want to see the movie. It’s a given, must-see….

Little Ashes (Regent releasing). Robert Pattinson, Matthew McNulty, and Javier Beltran star as the gorgeous trifecta in a look at the lives and complicated loves of the artist Salvador Dali, filmmaker Luis Bunuel, and poet Federico Garcia Lorca. Could be another “Brokeback Mountain.” Spain never looked more beautiful. Love. Art. Betrayal. The trailer reveals Oscar-worthy artistic direction.

Shorts (Warner Bros.). Writer/Director Robert Rodriguez (“Spy Kids”) unfolds a tale about what happens when kids and adults alike scheme to get a hold of a magic rock that grants wishes. Be careful, what you wish for is what you get! Lots of laughter from the audience. The trailer works.

Projects That Should Have Used Lindsay Lohan

Away We Go (Focus). The Office’s John Krasinski and Saturday Night Live’s Maya Rudolph star as an unmarried couple about to have a child who wander around the U.S. visiting friends and family as they search for a place called “home.” The trailer made attendees want to watch what happens to the wanderers. Director Sam Mended, be proud. Joe & Bill predict this indy might be another, “Little Miss Sunshine.”

*Departures (Regent Releasing). Again, bring three hankies to this totally endearing and unusual movie. The trailer effectively reveals the story of an unemployed cellist who takes a new job providing ceremonial services for the dead and the impact this job has on his life and relationships with the living. The trailer confirms that this Japanese film was certainly worthy of receiving the 2009 Oscar for Best Foreign Film. And did I mention that this was Filmfest DC’s Opening Night film?

Enlighten Up! (Balcony Releasing). The trailer reveals a documentary of a skeptical investigator trying to determine the transformational power of yoga as he travels around the world.

Terminator Salvation (Warner Bros.). It’s a post-apocalyptic world and John Connor, portrayed by Christian Bale, needs to save what’s left of the world from the killing machines. Bill & Joe lamented that this is a sans Sarah Connor vehicle and maybe the movie should have kept her around.

The Ugly Truth (Sony/Columbia). Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler star in this romantic comedy about a TV producer and a writer who schools the producer on romancing a “hot” doctor. The audience liked this.

Same #$%&, Different Toilet

Angels & Demons (Sony/Columbia). Tom Hanks reprises his role as Harvard symbiologist Robert Langdon, who is summoned to Rome to solve a murder, soon to be a series of murders, carried out by the secret society, the Illuminati, and save the Vatican from unholy destruction. Ewan McGregor as a priest, Armin Mueller- Stahl as a Cardinal, and Stellan Skarsgard as a Police Commander round out the cast. The trailer effectively captures the mystery and suspense.

My Life in Ruins (Fox Searchlight). Nia Vardolos, star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, goes to Greece on vacation this time, well actually as a travel guide experiencing love and romance with much comedy thrown into the mix.

*Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian (Fox). Night security guard Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) reprises his role this time to rescue his friends from storage in the Smithsonian’s archives. Jedidiah, Teddy Roosevelt, and all the members of the old exhibit gang reappear and are joined by several new ones awakened by the magic tablet of Egyptian King Kahmunrah. Amelia Earhart, General Custer, even Al Capone, liven up the picture and help showcase the many offerings of the Smithsonian museums. This is a must-see family-friendly film for fans of the first movie and museum-goers. The trailer received a tremendous round of applause and gales of laughter.

If You Have Nothing Original To Say, Move to Hollywood

District 9 (Sony). Sci-fi fan alert! This trailer features extra-terrestrials on earth living in squalor. It was a bit difficult to decipher the plot, but it does look intriguing.

G-Force (Buena Vista). When a diabolical billionaire plans to take over the world, who do you call? Move over Bond, it’s the G-Force! These specially-trained guinea pigs in this action adventure comedy work for the U.S. government. They’re c-u-t-e and hilarious.

Orphan (Dark Castle Enter). Isabelle Fuhrman is sufficiently creepy as Esther, the nine-year old adopted daughter of the Coleman’s. There are all these things going terribly wrong and may have something to do with Esther in this horror flick. The trailer effectively and chillingly depicts Esther as a cross between Damian from, The Omen and Patty McCormack’s Rhoda character in The Bad Seed (1956).

Taking of Pelham 123 (Sony/Columbia). Denzel Washington and John Travolta face off as the dispatcher and hostage mastermind in a game of matching wits in the remake of the 1974 movie where armed men hijack a New York City subway train and state that they will kill all the passengers one by one until they receive a million-dollar ransom. But don’t you worry, Dreamy Denzel’s in charge and Director Tony Scott’s famed action editing keeps this trailer moving with more than adequate suspense.

Year One (Sony/Columbia). Meet your ancestors! Jack Black and Michael Cera are featured in this stone-age comedy with all the hilarity you might expect from stoning and female slaves humor sequences. Cera plays the straight man.

*Inglorious Bastards (Weinstein). Brad Pitt and Diane Kruger star in this Quentin Tarantino period piece featuring Pitt as a World War II lieutenant fighting Nazis along with his troops. The trailer seemed unclear about the uniqueness of this group of fierce-fighting Jewish-American soldiers.

BONUS TRAILERS

Planet 51. Animation flick featuring an alien invasion by earthlings on another planet!

Armored. Laurence Fishburne, Jean Reno, and Matt Dillon in a story featuring armored security guards. The trailer reeks “guy flick.”

2012. It’s another post-Acopalypse flick brought to us by Day After Tomorrow’s Writer/Director Roland Emmerich, hmmmmmmn. Disaster in 2012 anyone?

See you at the movies!

Pomegranates and Myrrh: Comments from Director Najwa Najjar

The Stoning of Soraya M: Comments by Director Cyrus Nowrasteh

From the press notes

The Stoning of Soraya M, just opened in DC, is based on the book by Freidoune Sahebjam, a journalist based in France whose international best selling 1994 book brought global attention to the real Soraya who was stoned in 1986. It is thought that at least 1,000 women have been stoned to death in a number of Middle Eastern and African countries over the past 15 years and that an additional 5,000 women become the victims of "honor killings" each year.

“When I read the book, I thought, if this is really happening all over the world, someone needs to shine a light on it, somehow the world has to become more aware of it,” director Cyrus Nowrasteh said. At the same time, he was struck by the universal power of the story as a mythic tale of husbands and wives, good and evil, the insidious nature of silence and the unstoppable strength of moral fury. “At its core this is a story that is very relatable, because it is about a conflict between a man and a woman and you connect to the characters in an emotional way as husband and wife. These situations take place all the time all over the world. Some people have even compared Soraya and her husband, Ali, to O.J. and Nicole Simpson. But the difference is that in this hyped-up environment, Ali was able to use the religious legal system to have Soraya executed by her village simply because he wanted to take another wife.”

“What intrigued me is that, as in movies like The Oxbow Incident, you have a situation in this Iranian village where righteousness snowballs as more and more people get caught up in it. When that happens, first reason gets lost and then soon after, humanity gets left behind. At the same time, there is often someone who will stand up against the odds and try to bring people back to their senses. In Soraya’s story, that heroine is Zahra [played by Shohreh Aghdashloo]. I saw her as being almost like Gary Cooper in High Noon. She is the character who truly has strength in her convictions, who becomes the would-be protector of the innocent. And, even if she cannot save Soraya, she provides a real sense of hope for the future. Without Zahra, this story would have been too tragic to make into a film. But her triumph, her willingness to break the silence becomes something that inspires us all.”

When making inquiries into the rights for the book, Nowrasteh had difficulty tracking down the author. The son of a former Iranian ambassador, Freidoune Sahebjam had a long history of bold reportage even before he told the story of Soraya M. He had covered Iran’s abuses against the country’s Baha’i community, as well as the use of underage children in the Iranian Army during the 8-year Iran-Iraq War – which resulted in the decree of a death fatwa by the new Iranian Revolutionary Court. “I was finally able to speak to Freidoune on the phone, and I regret to say that my phone conversations with him, of which there were many, were my only personal contact with him. I never met the man in person but it was clear, even over a long-distance connection, that he was a force to be reckoned with: a man of great generosity, spirit and talent. He had been approached by other filmmakers but he had very specific requests. First, that the film be made in Farsi using largely Iranian actors. And second, that the film be directed by someone of Iranian background. I felt strongly about the same things, so we moved forward. My hope was always to do justice to his book just as his book brought justice to Soraya.” Sadly, Mr. Sahebjam, who was scheduled to visit the set, died in March 2008 at the age of 75 and did not see any of the film.

From the beginning, Cyrus and co-writer Betsy Nowrasteh made the decision to focus the tale’s suspense around Zahra, the savvy, outraged village woman who attempts to protect Soraya and ultimately tells her story in the hopes of saving others. Her quest for truth and justice amidst lies, betrayal and fraud became the driving force of the story. Meanwhile, Soraya and her accusers were etched as the two opposite poles of innocence and corruption between which each of the villagers must make a choice. As they wrote, the Nowrastehs compacted the actual events into a grippingly tight time frame. “It’s a ticking time-bomb story so we really wanted to concentrate the drama,” says Cyrus. “We always saw it as the story of an accusation, trial and execution that occur all in one day. Likewise, Zahra tells her story all in one day, heightening the tension.” The Nowrastehs stayed true to the real-life characters, but Sahebjam’s portrait of the men in the village was so unremittingly villainous that the writers actually worked to add more shading to characters and to more broadly reflect how different people react under the extreme peer pressure of mob rule. “Frankly, we humanized many of the male characters to show their inner conflicts and dilemmas, whereas in the book they are all evil to the core,” said Cyrus. “We wanted the mayor, Ebrahim, to be a man caught in a changing time, who knows that the ultimate authority is now the Mullah, and despite his better judgment will do whatever he must to maintain his political position. With Hashem, we gave him the afflicted son to put him in more of a bind, because it’s so hard to understand why he would testify against Soraya, to understand the kind of male unity that goes on in such villages from birth and the ways in which people are discouraged from ever defying the group.”

Some of the most seemingly fanciful scenes came straight from reality, including the playful traveling circus that shows up in the middle of Soraya’s execution day. “Of course, people ask if we invented that circus, but it’s very much in the book,” notes Cyrus. “My jaw dropped when I read about it. There’s something so Felliniesque about it, so surreal, that it could only have really happened that way.” The Nowrastehs maintained their commitment in the screenplay to have the characters speak in Iran’s native Farsi. “One of the things we always felt was important stylistically was to really bring audiences into this Iranian village, to have a very raw, human, immediate quality to the surroundings,” says Cyrus. “We fought for the film to be shot entirely in Farsi, despite the challenges, because I always felt that actors speaking English in an Iranian village would take people out of what was happening, would detract from the authentic and the pure emotional response as the scheme against Soraya builds. Of course, we understood that it was going to take a production company willing to take a considerable risk if we were going to be able to make the film.”

Another daunting challenge was finding a location that could authentically stand in for a remote Iranian village and fulfill his criteria for a starkly transporting realism -- all without raising any local controversy. Ultimately, he discovered a discreetly tucked-away hamlet in an undisclosed Arab country in the Middle East that fit the bill. “We searched all over the world, looking for a village that would serve our story. We saw a lot of standard dry, desert-y, out in the middle of nowhere, Lawrence of Arabia type villages. But finally we found this place in the mountains, a place made primarily out of rocks yet overlooking an incredible valley that gave us just the right feeling culturally and environmentally.”

Showing the stoning was always part of the plan. “No one had ever shown a stoning on film before so I felt a real responsibility to make it something the audience will never forget,” he said. “The question was always: how far do you go? I didn’t want to have anyone mistake what they were seeing for standard, popcorn movie violence but I also didn’t want it to be so graphic that it overwhelmed the audience. The entire scene was carefully designed so that there is a kind of cathartic poetry to it that goes to another level beyond the simple horror of what is happening.” Nowrasteh followed Sahebjam’s intricately detailed descriptions in the book of how the stoning unfolded and also willed himself to look at chilling, covert footage of real stonings in action. “All I can tell you is that compared to what I saw and read, the scene in the movie is far less graphic than it could have been,” he says. “Stoning does terrible things to the human body, but we didn’t want to focus on that. Most of all, I wanted to capture the whole ritual design of it and how it affects the crowd. It was very important to have the camera be very tight on Soraya, so that the audience is really going through this journey with her all the way to her final peace. But the camera, just as importantly, also moves into the crowd where we get a chance to feel their various reactions: the women trying to comfort one another, the men caught up in the mob frenzy. In some ways it was like choreographing a battle sequence. But, in this case, there was no one I could call and say: ‘how do you shoot something like this?’ There was no precedent.”

The scene plays out without much dialogue, carved out of gestures, expressions, camera movements and the random trajectory of the stones themselves, that build to a fever pitch, allowing the audience to be at once participant and witness to the events. “Mozhan’s performance and all the things that went into shooting that scene helped to make for its power,” says Nowrasteh. “You go through stages in watching it: first there’s shock that it’s happening, then disbelief at how the crowd gets caught up in it, then there’s the question of just how far will this go, but finally, there’s a kind of moment where the camera pans to the heavens and you are with Soraya as she transcends what is going on around her. There is a beauty to her dignity amid the chaos.”

Cyrus Nowrasteh's singular guiding principle throughout the making of The Stoning of Soraya M was that the world will know. “Yes, the film is a gripping drama,” he says, “but more than that it is a form of bearing witness, much like Zahra does in the movie. It becomes a liberating story about the power of breaking a silence and hopefully will encourage others to add their voices.” His wife and co-writer Betsy says, “Stonings happened in Judaism, crucifixions in Christianity and Catholics had The Inquisition, certainly. But those times are over. They reformed and those religions are stronger than ever. So this isn’t about Islam. It’s about examining a ritual, much like the lynchings that happened in the U.S in a different era, that needs to change, that can change if there is an outcry around the world.”

Notes from Silverdocs: Mugabe and the White African

By Annette Graham, DC Film Society Member

Mugabe and the White African, shown June 18 at Silverdocs, is the story of a family of white farmers in Zimbabwe and their struggle with President Robert Mugabe's controversial and violent land seizure program. Michael Campbell, in his mid 70s and one of the few white farmers left in Zimbabwe, runs his farm with the help of his wife and son-in-law Ben Freeth. The film is about his brave and unprecedented step of challenging Robert Mugabe before the SADC international court, charging him with racism and violations of human rights. Some of the footage was shot with hidden cameras. After the screening, Peter Godwin, former BBC foreign correspondent and author of When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa and filmmaker Lucy Bailey discussed the film.

Peter Godwin: What has happened since the film ended?
Lucy Bailey: It's not good news. The intimidation and invasions continued; there are more threats. They had to go to Harare and stay in a safe house. The situation is desperate; workers are chased away. It's a bleak picture; they are invaded every week. The Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, has been critical of the government but not enough action is being taken. Mugabe is using Tsvangirai to do the dirty business. SADC (Southern African Development Community) needs support.

PG: The farmers were terrified to be filmed or talk to a journalist. Why did this family stand up?
LB: We had spent some time in Africa and heard about his taking Mugabe to court. We thought he was a strong character with an incredible story to tell. But the logistics were a complete nightmare.

PG: How did you do it?
LB: We sent some cameras with them to use and had some in Namibia. We couldn't travel with the camera or we would have been arrested. We had to have a cover story and stay in safe houses. The equipment was smuggled in through different borders each time. Getting the rushes out of the country was also difficult and we smuggled it out on boats in the middle of the night. We briefed Ben [one of the farmers] on what we needed. When he was beaten up Mike [Ben's father-in-law] thought to pick up the camera. Ben says that publicity is the soul of justice. What they did was incredibly brave. We need to get the film out.

PG: There is little voice over.
LB: He had so much to say. What was difficult was creating story into a small time frame. The court case was mainstay. So we had to make that the main focus of the film.

PG: By the end of the process the farmers have become religious.
LB: If you could see what faith has done for them--it has given them strength. That's all they were left with.

Question from audience: I was disappointed about the consequences. When Mugabe came into power he said, "I'm not going to drive the whites out." Why has he changed? Why has he become a deranged fanatic who has ruined and destroyed the country?
PG: When Zimbabwe became independent in 1980 the white farmers were bedrock of economy. It has nothing to do with land or race. It has to do with the opposition. Mugabe needed to bribe the electorate. Back then the farmers had been supporting the government. They would have been more likely to chase you off then. The farmers were divided: some said "we need to save the farmers and make deals," others said, "this is a dangerous road to go on." There are fewer than 100 farmers left on the land and things have gotten worse since the land invasions.

Q: Why weren't white farmers killed?
LB: He wanted to intimidate. But they carried on. Fifteen farmers were killed in first year. You can kill with impunity the white farmers and black opposition. Even so, very few have been killed. This is a tribute to race relations in Zimbabwe, in contrast to South Africa where more than 2000 white farmers were killed. Even with a dictator in Zimbabwe, things are more dangerous in South Africa.

Q: The film is from the western perspective of religion and property rights.
LB: We set out to tell a certain story. That court is the first human rights court in Africa.
PG: Most of the black farm workers are from Zambia, Mozambique and other countries. When sugar estates and lumber estates were invaded, a million votes then went away from Mugabe. It's so easy to say it's righting of a historical wrong. Whites originally stole the land--true. But in 1980 the white farmers were not against land distribution. The land invasions are not about land. It's a smoke screen. The land is not going to the peasants. There is no shortage of land in Zimbabwe. Few countries in Africa have freehold land ownership. In most countries you can only lease the land for 40 years. It is the property of the state.

Q: Is the animosity caused by the profound cultural differences between whites and blacks?
PG: No. Any worker of Ben's is in much more danger than he is.

Q: What can be done about this to change?
LB: It's bleak while Mugabe is in power. The world could support SADC.
PG: There's a new situation with the transitional government. You want Mugabe to come to a clean end. There is no Plan B and thus there is a need to compromise. This has been going on for ten years. Zimbabwe isn't strategic and lacks oil and terrorism. If it exported either of them, people would pay attention. Unfortunately, the international community rewards those who take up arms.

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