"Case Study: Lord Of War"

El personaje de Yuri Orlov está ampliamente basado en el contrabandista de armas Viktor Bout, el ex – oficial de la extinta Union Soviética devenido en perro de guerra que fue arrestado por las autoridades tailandesas en Marzo 2008. Bout, conocido tambien como el “Mercader de la Muerte” se encontraba negociando el envío por vía marítima de un parque de armas a agentes encubiertos norteamericanos en Colombia que posaban como insurgentes de las FARC cuando fue finalmente arrestado. Actualmente purgando condena en una cárcel de Bangkok, Bout espera por su eventual extradición a una cárcel federal de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica — (chaburros, véanse en ese espejo).

"LORD OF WAR"

Screenplay by Andrew Niccol

FADE UP

CLOSE UP on the face of YURI ORLOV.

Late-thirties, maybe the wrong side of forty, cigarette dangling
from his fingers, wearing a conservative suit and tie.

Black smoke wafts in front of his face. He speaks matter-of-factly,
directly into camera.

YURI
There are over 550 million firearms in
worldwide circulation. That's one firearm
for every twelve people on the planet. The
only question is...
(taking a draft and stubbing out
the cigarette)
...how do we arm the other eleven?

The camera zooms away from his face, revealing:

Yuri alone on a battlefield surrounded by the charred carcasses of
armored military vehicles and other equipment, discarded weapons and
ammunition, desert floor stained with what appears to be blood.

The faint sound of gunfire, some distance away, carries to us on the
wind.

CUT TO:

A TITLE SEQUENCE FOLLOWS - A CONTINUOUS SHOT FROM A CAMERA
MOUNTED ON THE BACK OF A BULLET CASING - ILLUSTRATING THE
LIFESPAN OF THE BULLET.

- Gunpowder is poured into a metal casing, lead slug mounted on top.
A BULLET is born. A perfect 39mm.

- The BULLET travels along a conveyor belt with thousands of
identical siblings in a Ukrainian factory so grey it's monochrome.

- The BULLET, picked up by a ham-fisted UKRAINIAN FACTORY WORKER, is
tossed into a crate.

- The BULLET, lying in its open crate, rolls down a chute where it's
inspected by a UKRAINIAN MILITARY OFFICER holding a manifest. He
seems to stare directly at our BULLET.

UKRAINIAN OFFICER
(to his SUBORDINATE carrying a
manifest, in Ukrainian)
Call it "agricultural machinery".

- The BULLET's crate rattles around in an open-bed truck along an
industrial road, passes a decapitated statue of LENIN.

- The crate containing our BULLET is placed on a ship in
the cold grey Odessa harbor. A container door closes, plunging the
bullet into darkness.

- The door re-opens. The BULLET, still in its crate, now basks in
bright, tropical sunshine, surrounded by an azure sea.

- The crate is removed by a pair of slim, dark hands, revealing a
glimpse of the bustling, weathered port of Abidjan in the Ivory
Coast. The crate is one of dozens unloaded from the ship.

- BULLET's POV from another open-air truck, now slogging through a
mud-clogged road in lush rainforest.

- The BULLET is unloaded from the truck in Freetown, Sierra Leone - immediately grabbed by the young HAND of a RUF soldier.

- The BULLET is loaded into a 30-round magazine which is inserted
into an AK-47 machine gun.

- The BULLET waits - in the gloomy chamber. Suddenly, from outside,
the sound of raised voices and gunfire.

- The BULLET and its neighbors start to rise quickly up the magazine
towards the chamber as the Kalashnikov is fired.

- Our hero BULLET is next. Will it see action?

- Smack. The gun's bolt strieks the explosive cap, gunpowder
ignited, the BULLET driven out of the barrel.

- Shed of its casing - now only a slug - the BULLET emerges into
bright sunshine. It is flying down the main street in Freetown.

- The BULLET gives us a perfect point-of-view of the bullet ahead of
it. They are both flying towards their intended target - a wild-
eyed CHILD SOLDIER, a boy no more than twelve, firing an AK-47
almost as tall as he is.

- The leading bullet narrowly misses, whistles past the boy's ear,
striking the whitewashed wall behind - one more pock-mark in a
building riddled with pock-marks.

- Our BULLET, following close behind, finds its mark, slamming into
the boy's forehead just above his left eye - his expression, oddly
relieved.

- The BULLET carves through the lobes of the boy's brain
where it is enveloped in blood, finally plunged into
darkness - the bullet's final resting place.

CUT TO BLACK



Escenas memorables:

- Lord of War - 9. "Ava Fontaine" (o cómo levantarse a una "High maintenace woman")

Ava es la vecina de infancia de Yuri en el barrio ukraniano de Nueva York en el que ambos crecieron, sólo que la hermosa Ava, reina de belleza de los festivales del barrio y posterior modelo de revistas de glamour siempre estuvo demasiado ocupada para notar su existencia. El dinero dá para muchas cosas y eso le permite a Yuri rastrearla, dar con su agente y reservarla para una sesión de fotografías en una paradisíaca isla del caribe con un fotógrafo que no existe. Aburrida, a la espera de un fotógrafo que nunca llega es el momento que Yuri tanto ansiaba para hacer su presentación ó para citar sus propias palabras:

"En mi experiencia, algunas de las más existosas relaciones están basadas en mentiras y engaños. Dado que ese es el lugar donde usualmente terminan, es por ende un lógico lugar por donde comenzar."

- Lord of War - 7. "Kono"

"No tengo bandera holandesa. La que tengo es belga."

"Qué estas diciendo? Acabo de cambiar el nombre del barco a uno registrado en los Paises Bajos!"

"Espera! Tengo una francesa"

"Y?"

"Si la izamos de lado, es holandesa."

- Lord of War - 10. "Cold War Stock Pile"

El inmenso arsenal de guerra que queda disponible tras la caída del Bloque Soviético y el subsecuente colapso de los países del mundo socialista.

- Lord of War - 13. "Golden AK-47"

Un escenario que les resultará bastante familiar a los habitantes de cualquier otra república bananera.

- Lord of War - 17. "Plane Time Lapse"

"Es como cometer la locura de dejar tu auto parqueado en algún barrio malo del Bronx...simplemente no lo haces."

"La forma como lo veo es desde la perspectiva africana, la vida, la naturaleza misma: todo lo que proviene de la tierra eventualmente regresa a ella...inclusive un avión de carga de cuarenta toneladas."