I think if you read the story as bad guy turns good guy, then clearly it is a clichรฉ. But my experience, when I spent three years working with young people in the townships on issues principally around HIV/AIDS, is that people are usually neither entirely good or bad. They are usually variations of both. Just because someone is a carjacker doesn't mean they are a ruthless cold-blooded murderer.
Gavin HoodHany Abu-Assad was sitting next to me, and his film 'Paradise Now' had won the Golden Globe. He said to me at the Globes, 'Paradise now, talk to you later.' [laughs] I gave him a big hug for that.
Gavin HoodOne reads many scripts, and some of them are good and some of them are not, but every now and then, one really grabs you. You simply can't put it down.
Gavin HoodWhen I see big movies that are only about good versus evil, and the good guy wins, I only can think we're in a far more complicated world than that. I frankly think that this binary philosophy is actually a dangerous way to look at the world.
Gavin Hood