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The East Premiere
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There is no room for doubt that we are continuously exposed to products that harm our health, and it is nothing new that, in many cases, these risks are minimized or even hidden by different interests. With varying degrees of success, cinema has dealt with this subject on several occasions. This is the case of The East, a new film where, from an intelligent point of view and with a fast pace, this and other cross-cutting themes are treated.
The title of the movie comes from the name of a young anti system group whose goal is an eye for an eye fight against large corporations that seriously damage the environment and public health. Sarah Moss, played by Brit Marling (also script co-writer), is a former FBI agent who now works for one of these private intelligence agency that protect the interests of the powerful companies. Her important and dangerous mission consists in infiltrating into this group in order to account to her boss for their next action. When she starts to live with the group and knows their motives, she changes her mind and begins to question the ethics of her work and of the agency she works for. But revenge and blackmail as the only way of public denunciation, that the environmental-anarchist group uses, does not convince her either. Hence, maybe the end of the film will not be what the viewer expects.
Although the story loses some of its strength in the last part, it is very interesting to disclose the work of these private agencies that can get to work even for the CIA or the FBI.
Patricia Clarkson is splendid as it is usual with her, as the cold and Machiavellian executive of the agency. Perhaps, it would have been preferable a deepening treatment of the ways these agencies behave and their relationships with large corporations.
There is something that we have to keep in mind: according to the film director (Zal Batmangilj), the crimes of the companies which are featured in the film are all real.
Texts: Núria Farré. facebook@cinemaperaestudiants.cat
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