The Constant Gardener

[julialnyc]

this movie looks interesting:
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/336779p-287635c.html

snipped....
English class behavior is a strong theme in the novel and an undercurrent in the film, which stars Fiennes as Justin Quayle, a buttoned-up British diplomat in Kenya who is married to Weisz's Tessa, a fiery activist. Her murder begins the movie, which then flashes back to tell the story of her romance with Quayle and her crusade to uncover a pharmaceutical scandal in AIDS-ridden Africa. The film follows Quayle's journey to learn the truth behind his wife's murder.

"I think this is a kind of reality film, if you like. This is how the slums look, this is the kind of way we exploit the Third World," le Carré says. "You can't bleat about debt relief and how much we love Africa unless you also address the arms industry, the pharmaceutical industry, globalization."

Le Carré says that using Africa as a setting for "The Constant Gardener" is consistent with his career-long focus on former colonies: for example, Hong Kong in "The Honorable Schoolboy" and Panama in "The Tailor of Panama."

"I'm interested in the seeming transitions that are actually not transitions," he says. "Power is still retained by other means and exploitation remains in other forms."

[julialnyc]

1. snipped from same piece

snipped from same piece............
Le Carré is working on a new novel now. He won't discuss it but says the modern world of terrorism offers ample plot inspirations.


Writers and filmmakers, in his view, have a duty to fill the gap between political spin and the awareness of the person in the street. "We are obligated to tell greater truths than are being publicized," he says. "I think there should be many more movies like this."

[julialnyc]

2. Le Carré Aims his Pen at Big Pharma(Archive)

http://www.trilliuminvest.com/pages/news/news_detail.asp?ArticleID=59&Status=Archive

snipped....
Never fear, he has found it in the machinations of drug companies. His new novel, "The Constant Gardener," which has just been published in this country by Scribner, sketches a horrifying picture of giant drug manufacturers - Big Pharma, he calls them - who have a callous disregard for humanity. They use poor Africans as guinea pigs for new drugs. Many of these people die from the side effects. The game plan is always to develop these new formulations not to treat needy Africans but rich Americans who will pay top dollar.

Of course they cover up any reports of deadly side effects. Not only that, in Le Carré's riveting story, played out largely in Kenya, the drug lords resort to every device, including murder, to silence activists. Complicit in this seedy exercise is the British government, through its Foreign Office, which Le Carré knows very well. The most striking characters in this book are the people who work for the British Foreign Office.

In the end, "The Constant Gardner" leaves the reader with revulsion at the actions of drug companies. A scientist who helped develop a drug to treat tuberculosis describes how the trials "are designed only to get the drug on the market as soon as possible. Certain side effects were deliberately excluded... Most of the patients are in undemocratic countries with very corrupt systems. Theoretically they give their informed consent to the treatment. That is to say, their signatures are on the consent forms even if they cannot read what they have signed." As one observer puts it, "If it poisons a few people who were going to die anyway, what's the big deal?"

And when a British government official tells the head of a drug company that he doesn't know how much help he can give him, the CEO screams: "You're history, Donohue. You think countries run the f- - -ing world! Go back to f- - -ing Sunday school. It's 'God save our multinational' they're singing these days."

The Foreign Office works hand-in-glove with the drug companies and with corrupt African governments. The rationale, cruelly put, is: "Foreign Office isn't in the business of passing judgment on the safety of non-indigenous drugs, is it? Supposed to be greasing the wheels of British industry, not going round telling everybody that a British company in Africa is poisoning its customer. You know the game. We're not paid to be bleeding hearts. We're not killing people who wouldn't otherwise die. I mean, Christ, look at the death rate in this place. Not that anybody's counting."

The drug companies featured in Le Carré's tale are Swiss and British but it's clear that he is indicting the entire pharmaceutical industry for putting profits over medicine, which is the reverse of what the companies themselves say when they talk about their missions. I know people at these companies, especially at Merck and Pfizer, and I don't recognize them in this novel. But a novelist's job is to express in dramatic terms the logic of a way of life or, in this case, a way of business. Le Carré's book appears just at a time when the pharmaceutical industry is under fire for worrying more about its patents than helping sick people to heal.

Le Carré felt constrained to add an "Author's Note" at the end of his novel. There he disclaims that his characters or companies are based on real people or actual corporations. As he points out, "In these days when lawyers rule the universe, I have to persist with these disclaimers." However, he also felt constrained to add: "As my journey through the pharmaceutical jungle progressed, I came to realize that, by comparison with the reality, my story was as tame as a holiday postcard."

In an article he wrote recently for "The Guardian," Le Carré expanded on his thesis. He noted that many of the antiretrovirals used to treat HIV positive patients were developed in publicly funded U.S. research projects, and he pointed out that while Africa has 80% of the world's AIDS patients, "it comprises 1% of Big Pharma's market."

[evermind]

3. It's a good book, but I'd rather see "Absolute Friends" filmed...

that one is a scorcher of a novel and presents a powerful, realistically jaundiced view of the spy business of today much removed from his earlier work.