by Fred Topel
“I do think there’s a real world parallel.”
– Gavin Hood
Gavin Hood became a political filmmaker with his very first movie. In Tsotsi he attempted to redeem a fictional criminal teen in South Africa, Hood’s country of origin. He tackled American foreign policy, for better or worse, in his follow-up film, Rendition. The ensemble drama about our government’s often overlooked policy of taking terror suspects to foreign countries where torture could be conducted legally, was not a hit financially or critically, but it asked the questions Hood wanted to ask.
The X-Men series has always kept politics in the metaphorical forefront. The comic books portrayed mutants as a persecuted minority. The films featured politicians proposing policy to round up mutants, exterminate them or even try to “cure” them, raising the moral question of who decides what needs to be fixed.
Perhaps Hood is the right filmmakers to explore the origin of X-Men’s signature character, Wolverine. Hugh Jackman returns as James Logan, whose self-healing powers and natural claws made him a prime candidate for military work. Thanks to his extended life span, Logan’s military career spans from The Civil War to private mercenary operations post-Vietnam. When his old mercenary cohorts threaten his quiet life as a Canadian lumberjack, Logan submits to experiments that give him an adamantium endoskeleton, including new claws.
Hood was eager to discuss the political undertones of his film. He claimed that no previous interview had made the connection between the film’s African mercenary missions and his own South African background. These may not be the comic book soundbites Marvel and Fox want to use to sell their movie, but they show the thought Hood put into his first big budget studio spectacle, however the end result is judged.
