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| Bodnia and Bernal duel in Rosewater. |
««« Rosewater.
Written and directed by Jon Stewart, based on the book Then They Came for Me by Maziar Bahari & Aimee Molloy. At area theaters.
Most of America
knows what The Daily Show host Jon
Stewart did two summers ago: he went to the Middle East to direct a movie. His
subject is the ordeal of journalist Maziar Bahari, who was imprisoned by the
Iranian regime after covering street protests against the 2009 election of
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Bahari's plight was directly connected to The Daily Show, as footage of a kidding
interview with correspondent Jason Jones was used as "evidence" that
Bahari was a spy for the CIA. Considering that Bahari's appearance was used against him, Stewart apparently felt
that making a movie about his case was the least he could do.
The result is Rosewater, and it can at least be said that Stewart did not spend
his summer vacation in vain. Based on Bahari's memoir Then They Came for Me, this is a well-wrought, definitely non-satirical
account of one man's ordeal inside a modern police state (no, not the one Fox
News accuses Obama of running—a real
police state). In a characteristically chilling scene, Bahari's interrogator
(Kim Bodnia) collects Bahari (Gael
García Bernal) from his childhood bedroom in his mother's
house—literally from a sound sleep. "We are here now," he announces,
as if they both knew it was inevitable. From there he is packed off to Tehran's
infamous Evin prison.
Bahari's "crime" was to videotape
troops shooting protestors during the post-election demonstrations. After
presenting his arrest, Stewart flashes back for the background—Bahari's life in
London with his British wife (Claire Foy), his arrival in Tehran to cover the
elections, his encounter with a highly schizoid Iranian society, half its
people gazing in hope to the West, the other burning with resentment for
half-imagined national humiliations. By the time Stewart circles back to Evin, he abruptly narrows his focus on the two rooms Bahari knew for 118 days—his
bare cell, and the office where he was interrogated. Most of the latter he
endured wearing a blindfold, knowing his tormentor only by his voice and his
rosewater cologne.
Stewart is a competent
director largely because he seems to have watched a lot of other movies. While his
portrayal of Bahari's confinement is vivid, it doesn't exactly break new cinematic ground. Bernal, likewise, is earnest and relatable, but not characterized very
strongly. The impression overall is that Stewart is a frustrated progressive—he
believes in both government and journalism, but yearns for both to more often achieve
their ideals. It's a point many critics of The
Daily Show miss, that its snarkiness and cynicism is only an act, barely
hiding an almost dewy-eyed humanism.
That Rosewater is non-satirical doesn't mean
it lacks humor. Stewart gets a few yuks out of the Iranians' ignorance of
American culture ("The Sopranos,
that is porno, yes?"). When Bodnia invites Bahari to call his wife, he
advises him to "dial 9" to get an outside line.
That little snap of
absurdity, that you need to dial 9 to call out of Evin Prison, is pure Jon
Stewart. No argument that Rosewater
has its heart in the right place. A little more bite, though, would have made a
memorable film out a merely admirable one.
©
2014 Nicholas Nicastro
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