Berlin 2003

The Life of David Gale
directed by Alan Parker

Beyond Death
by Hassouna Mansouri

It could be one of those films which tells the story of a man sentenced to the capital punishment. In fact, Hollywood cinema has developed a tradition, almost a genre, around this theme. The Life of David Gale, the last feature movie by Alan Parker, uses many topics of the genre but at the same time, the movie has its own characteristics and point of view.

The narration is completely unexpected. The suspense lasts until the last moment of the film, even after David Gale’s death. Many moments of tension are multiplied in such mode that their succession creates a kind of acceleration. The intervals between them are more and more brief.

David Gale, alias Kevin Spacey, is an engaged professor. With Constance Harraway (Laura Linney), he struggles against capital punishment. Their main argument is the absurdity of this condemnation – even more unacceptable when the concerned person is really innocent.

All the characters are moving on taking consideration of two man concepts: life by one hand, and death by the other hand. The irony of the story is that David himself is condemned to death penalty. The man who was defending the right of others for life, finds himself in such a situation that his own right to live is confiscated. In addition to that, the crime from which he is accused is the murder of his accomplice in this struggle, his friend Constance. Both were opposed to death penalty. This woman had another battle against death. She was dying because of leukemia. In a way she was the other face of David Gale, his feminine side. But their journeys have opposite directions. She is struggling against death because of her illness, from the beginning. David is afraid for his life at the end of his own evolution. The threat of his death is a consequence of his engagement as a punishment – not for any crime but for his struggle.

Another character is between death and life. Betsy Bloom ( Kate Winslet ) plays the reporter David Gale calls so that she can help him recover his freedom. Called for what she thinks is a simple scoop for her, she understands that Gale asked her to find Constance’s murderer. In spite of her desire to stay far from the inquiry she felt in the trap of the presumed murderer. In her investigations, she finds out the real murderer is another friend of Constance’s. She thinks, and the spectators with her, that David Gale can be saved. But it is not the case, she comes too late for that. At this moment one may think the story has come to an end, but… no! Alan Parker has another idea. Betsy receives a gift from David Gale, a videocassette in which we discover the whole scene of Constance’s death, kind of an execution. This time the sequence appears completely different, and David Gale happened to indeed have played a role in it.

It’s a kind of proof of their conviction’s depth. They created conditions for a man to be killed by a legal judgement, and therefore used their own lives and deaths to concretely show the absurdity of this law which gives the right to the State to kill someone.

Even after death, David Gale and Constance Harraway continue their struggle against the injustice of this law. Betsy’s face when she discovers the whole story is a manner for Parker to tell us that there is no absolute truth, especially when we try to deal with death.

Hassouna Mansouri
© FIPRESCI 2003

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