Film Review: The Road to Guantanamo

I saw the film The Road To Guantanamo earlier this week. It is a horrifying tale of false imprisonment of three British Nationals in the months after September 11th. Here is a quick synopsis:

Known as the “Tipton Three,” Asif Iqbal, Ruhel Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul traveled to Pakistan for a wedding in September 2001, and then decided to continue on to Afghanistan to help with humanitarian aid efforts. Arriving just as U.S. forces had begun to attack, Asif, Ruhel and Shafiq (along with a fourth friend, Monir Ali, who went missing and is presumed dead) were soon swept up in the chaos of a war-torn country and picked up by the Northern Alliance as alleged Taliban fighters. Sent to Guantanamo, they were interrogated, tortured and held without charge for two years. Interweaving interviews with Asif, Ruhel and Shafiq with meticulous reenactments of their experiences, the film illustrates that in the War on Terror, there are bound to be innocent victims (Guantanamo currently holds 460 men on suspicion of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban, yet only 10 have been charged).

The film starts with 4 men going from England to Pakistan in October of 2001 as one of them is getting married. From there they are encouraged by the mosque they are sleeping at to go to Afghanistan to do charily work and help the poor Afghan Muslims who are being bombed and are in desperate need of everything. After a few weeks of utter chaos there they are trying to return to Pakistan when they are captured by the Northern Alliance and turned over to the Americans. Once in their hands they are branded ‘terrorists’ and sent to Guantanamo.

They are tortured endlessly for years before they are returned to Britain. I cannot tell you how utterly gut wrenching these scenes are and they are not filmed in an exploitative way. In any other hands but these director’s I think we would have seen even more violence and deprivation. The filmmakers have showed restraint where the men and women of Guantanamo have shown precious little. Still I cannot tell you how devastating these scenes are. Once you see this film Guantanamo can never be again a place you can tolerate on any level without speaking out to condemn it. The US is doing the most despicable things there on a daily basis and after 4 years they have only charged 10 people with any crime. The kharma of what we are doing is so horrible I can only wonder what will be headed our way next and by our own hand.

I encourage all of you to see the film when it comes to your city or town and to show it to anyone who will watch when it comes out on DVD.

The website for the film has alot more info and you can find it Here and the previous link above also has a wonderful Q&A with the directors.

6 Comments

albert on July 6, 2006 at 2:34 pm

I saw a preview of this down here in Philly at the Ritz theater [a great local chain of movie houses]. I’m glad you liked it – I very much want to see this one.

Arcturus on July 6, 2006 at 3:29 pm

Nice write-uo — look forward to seeing it. Their story is horrifying.

We’ve been watching a lot of political/social issues type films lately. Try watching “Battle of Algiers” back to back with Syriana. It’s a thought-provoking combo.

wilfred on July 6, 2006 at 8:33 pm

I saw “Battle of Algiers” when it was re-released at Film Forum here in NYC a few months ago.

Talk about relevant to the US in Iraq! I heartily recommend it.

“Guantanamo” will blow your socks off, it brings the full force of the horror we are indulging in there (and elsewhere).
- Arcturus on July 6, 2006 at 9:19 pm
  
  The Criterion (I think it was called?) re-issue that we rented was a 3 cd affair — the 2nd had more on the hitory of the independence war & interviews w/ Pedrogoza — the 3rd is a knockout — incl. one segment w/ Richard Clarke & another counter-terrorist expert I can’t recall, talking about the film in the context of today, and an amazing piece when Pedrogoza returns to Algeria 20 some years later, just as the FLN cancels elections in fear of the opposition Islamist group FIS, a conflict that today is just now on the verge of reconciliation & that has claimed some 200,000 lives. Puts all the more gravity on Yucef’s (sp?) words in the orginal that the hardest revolutionary task of all is actualy governing. He gets to go back & film in the Casbah, even entering homes & interviewing the women & girls. & there’s stuff on torture, incl. interviews w/ some of the French involved & the author of The Question. It’s amazing. Well worth renting, even if you don;t want to re-watch the original. (but try it back & to back w/ Syriana & you’ll see what I mean.)
  
  The Iranian Mohesen Makhmalbaf’s Road to Kandahar & his daughter Samira’s At 5 in the Afternoon are stunning films on Afghanistan – the latter an esp. unique poetic achievment.
  
  & then there is Jonathan Demme’s (Stop Making Sense, Married to the Mob, Philadelphia, Silence of the Lambs, Beloved, Manchurian Cadidate re-make, Swimming to Cambodia) The Agronomist, a documentary on Jean Dominique, journalist and human rights activist, who founded Radio Haiti and died, like many in Haiti, from a political bullet. It’s a devastating testimony to the unquenchable struggle for democracy in Haiti.
  - wilfred on July 6, 2006 at 10:03 pm
    
    i loved “The Agronomist”, I wrote on that a while back.
    
    I’ve never seen “At 5 in the Afternoon” but will keep an eye out for it, sounds lovely.
    - Arcturus on July 7, 2006 at 11:58 am
      
      I think I must owe you then. I expected to like it, but wwas astonished at how good it was, how light a touch it used to deal w/ such aheavy subject w/out in the least diminishing or trivializing it.
      
      We keep a list of movies to look for, & when my wife brought it home, I couldn’t for the life of me think of where I’d heard about it. Those memory holes keep getting larger with age. So . . .
      
      Thank you!
      
      I’m frustrated that I can’t locate a copy of “At 5 in the Afternoon.” I saw it on the IFC channel, but so far as I can tell, it doesn’t have a USA distributor. It is available in the UK, however. Highly frustrating, as I’d dieing for my wife to see it & I’d love to see it again myself. Here’s a link to an interview with her. There are some interesting interviews & other stuff on the site; I particularly appreciated an interview with an Indian writer her father did, called “from che to ghandi:”
      
      But while making films in the past 30 years I understood that making a film is not enough and it is not the only thing. For instance if you are making a film about poor people then you cannot forget them and move on to the next film.
      
      Which corresponds nicely with the film-making philosophy of the Brazilian, Meirelles, who directed “Constant Gardner” & “City of God” set in the Rio favelas.
      
      here’s a write-up of “At 5in the Afternoon”:
      
      Samira Makhmalbaf”s third feature At 5 in the Afternoon confirms her status as one of the most iconic auteurs of current world cinema – bathed in the reflected glory of a prestigious family name, admired as a gifted and original film-maker in her own right and adored for her rarity as a Middle Eastern female director still shy of her twenty-fifth birthday. The story of an ambitious young woman pursuing an education in post-war Afghanistan, At 5 in the Afternoon was the first film to be shot in Kabul after the American bombardment. It premiered at Cannes in 2003 and was awarded the Jury Prize . . . {snip}
      
      At 5 in the Afternoon (the title comes from a sorrowful Lorca poem about a bullfight) begins as a simple tale of ambition flourishing against the odds: 20-year-old Noqreh (Agheleh Rezaee) sneaks out to attend school, keeping her desire to learn secret from her traditionalist father, and after a classroom discussion decides she wants to become the next president of Afghanistan. She enlists the help of a young poet (Razi Mohebi), but their efforts to co-ordinate a campaign are interrupted by more pressing concerns such as the constant search for new lodgings and the health of Noqreh”s sister-in-law”s baby, who is wasting away for lack of food. Deprived of adequate shelter and sustenance, the optimistic Noqreh faces relentless obstacles, and what began as an endearing youthful whim becomes a metaphor for the denial of potential and the suppression of hope. Samira Makhmalbaf”s ambitious and complex film provides a melancholy portrait of a society in freefall – leavened by a hint of romance and flashes of almost screwball humour. {snip}
      
      . . . Yet Samira”s personal poise and confidence bespeak a powerful intellectual independence and her age and gender as well as her artistic idiosyncrasies set her films apart from her father”s (in a manner that might stand further comparison with Coppola père and fille ). Samira is the same age as post-revolutionary Iran and has lived her life in a political and cultural climate strikingly different from that which turned her father into a teenage guerrilla. At the age when Mohsen took up arms against the regime of Shah Pahlavi, enduring imprisonment and torture for assaulting a policeman, Samira registered her own dissent with her first feature The Apple (1997), which enlisted the true story of two little girls imprisoned by their over-protective father to serve as an allegory for the restrictions placed on all Iranians, particularly women. As Hamid Dabashi puts it in Close-Up: Iranian cinema past, present and future : “Mohsen Makhmalbaf may have taught his daughter how to make films, but she has taught her father how to liberate a nation.” Samira acknowledges the irony of a country where women are veiled and oppressed producing a prolific female director, phrasing her explanation in characteristically poetic terms: “Iranian women are like fresh-water streams: the more pressure is applied, the more force they show when they are freed.”
      
      (Can you tell I have an article knocking about in my head that I’m too lazy to write?

albert on July 6, 2006 at 2:34 pm

I saw a preview of this down here in Philly at the Ritz theater [a great local chain of movie houses]. I’m glad you liked it – I very much want to see this one.
Arcturus on July 6, 2006 at 3:29 pm

Nice write-uo — look forward to seeing it. Their story is horrifying.

We’ve been watching a lot of political/social issues type films lately. Try watching “Battle of Algiers” back to back with Syriana. It’s a thought-provoking combo.
- wilfred on July 6, 2006 at 8:33 pm
  
  I saw “Battle of Algiers” when it was re-released at Film Forum here in NYC a few months ago.
  
  Talk about relevant to the US in Iraq! I heartily recommend it.
  
  “Guantanamo” will blow your socks off, it brings the full force of the horror we are indulging in there (and elsewhere).
  - Arcturus on July 6, 2006 at 9:19 pm
    
    The Criterion (I think it was called?) re-issue that we rented was a 3 cd affair — the 2nd had more on the hitory of the independence war & interviews w/ Pedrogoza — the 3rd is a knockout — incl. one segment w/ Richard Clarke & another counter-terrorist expert I can’t recall, talking about the film in the context of today, and an amazing piece when Pedrogoza returns to Algeria 20 some years later, just as the FLN cancels elections in fear of the opposition Islamist group FIS, a conflict that today is just now on the verge of reconciliation & that has claimed some 200,000 lives. Puts all the more gravity on Yucef’s (sp?) words in the orginal that the hardest revolutionary task of all is actualy governing. He gets to go back & film in the Casbah, even entering homes & interviewing the women & girls. & there’s stuff on torture, incl. interviews w/ some of the French involved & the author of The Question. It’s amazing. Well worth renting, even if you don;t want to re-watch the original. (but try it back & to back w/ Syriana & you’ll see what I mean.)
    
    The Iranian Mohesen Makhmalbaf’s Road to Kandahar & his daughter Samira’s At 5 in the Afternoon are stunning films on Afghanistan – the latter an esp. unique poetic achievment.
    
    & then there is Jonathan Demme’s (Stop Making Sense, Married to the Mob, Philadelphia, Silence of the Lambs, Beloved, Manchurian Cadidate re-make, Swimming to Cambodia) The Agronomist, a documentary on Jean Dominique, journalist and human rights activist, who founded Radio Haiti and died, like many in Haiti, from a political bullet. It’s a devastating testimony to the unquenchable struggle for democracy in Haiti.
    - wilfred on July 6, 2006 at 10:03 pm
      
      i loved “The Agronomist”, I wrote on that a while back.
      
      I’ve never seen “At 5 in the Afternoon” but will keep an eye out for it, sounds lovely.
      - Arcturus on July 7, 2006 at 11:58 am
        
        I think I must owe you then. I expected to like it, but wwas astonished at how good it was, how light a touch it used to deal w/ such aheavy subject w/out in the least diminishing or trivializing it.
        
        We keep a list of movies to look for, & when my wife brought it home, I couldn’t for the life of me think of where I’d heard about it. Those memory holes keep getting larger with age. So . . .
        
        Thank you!
        
        I’m frustrated that I can’t locate a copy of “At 5 in the Afternoon.” I saw it on the IFC channel, but so far as I can tell, it doesn’t have a USA distributor. It is available in the UK, however. Highly frustrating, as I’d dieing for my wife to see it & I’d love to see it again myself. Here’s a link to an interview with her. There are some interesting interviews & other stuff on the site; I particularly appreciated an interview with an Indian writer her father did, called “from che to ghandi:”
        
        But while making films in the past 30 years I understood that making a film is not enough and it is not the only thing. For instance if you are making a film about poor people then you cannot forget them and move on to the next film.
        
        Which corresponds nicely with the film-making philosophy of the Brazilian, Meirelles, who directed “Constant Gardner” & “City of God” set in the Rio favelas.
        
        here’s a write-up of “At 5in the Afternoon”:
        
        Samira Makhmalbaf”s third feature At 5 in the Afternoon confirms her status as one of the most iconic auteurs of current world cinema – bathed in the reflected glory of a prestigious family name, admired as a gifted and original film-maker in her own right and adored for her rarity as a Middle Eastern female director still shy of her twenty-fifth birthday. The story of an ambitious young woman pursuing an education in post-war Afghanistan, At 5 in the Afternoon was the first film to be shot in Kabul after the American bombardment. It premiered at Cannes in 2003 and was awarded the Jury Prize . . . {snip}
        
        At 5 in the Afternoon (the title comes from a sorrowful Lorca poem about a bullfight) begins as a simple tale of ambition flourishing against the odds: 20-year-old Noqreh (Agheleh Rezaee) sneaks out to attend school, keeping her desire to learn secret from her traditionalist father, and after a classroom discussion decides she wants to become the next president of Afghanistan. She enlists the help of a young poet (Razi Mohebi), but their efforts to co-ordinate a campaign are interrupted by more pressing concerns such as the constant search for new lodgings and the health of Noqreh”s sister-in-law”s baby, who is wasting away for lack of food. Deprived of adequate shelter and sustenance, the optimistic Noqreh faces relentless obstacles, and what began as an endearing youthful whim becomes a metaphor for the denial of potential and the suppression of hope. Samira Makhmalbaf”s ambitious and complex film provides a melancholy portrait of a society in freefall – leavened by a hint of romance and flashes of almost screwball humour. {snip}
        
        . . . Yet Samira”s personal poise and confidence bespeak a powerful intellectual independence and her age and gender as well as her artistic idiosyncrasies set her films apart from her father”s (in a manner that might stand further comparison with Coppola père and fille ). Samira is the same age as post-revolutionary Iran and has lived her life in a political and cultural climate strikingly different from that which turned her father into a teenage guerrilla. At the age when Mohsen took up arms against the regime of Shah Pahlavi, enduring imprisonment and torture for assaulting a policeman, Samira registered her own dissent with her first feature The Apple (1997), which enlisted the true story of two little girls imprisoned by their over-protective father to serve as an allegory for the restrictions placed on all Iranians, particularly women. As Hamid Dabashi puts it in Close-Up: Iranian cinema past, present and future : “Mohsen Makhmalbaf may have taught his daughter how to make films, but she has taught her father how to liberate a nation.” Samira acknowledges the irony of a country where women are veiled and oppressed producing a prolific female director, phrasing her explanation in characteristically poetic terms: “Iranian women are like fresh-water streams: the more pressure is applied, the more force they show when they are freed.”
        
        (Can you tell I have an article knocking about in my head that I’m too lazy to write?

Film Review: The Road to Guantanamo

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