Rosewater: A Profound Revolution

Some days, I feel incredibly fortunate to be a New Yorker. My oft-mentioned brilliant friend, Laura, alerted me to a special preview screening of Rosewater at the AMC Lincoln Square theater on Thursday. The screening would be followed by a live stream of a Q&A session between Stephen Colbert, Maziar Bahari, and Jon Stewart that was being broadcast across the country in multiple movie theaters. However, much to my shock and delight, since I was attending the Lincoln Square screening, I had unwittingly stumbled upon the location where Stewart, Colbert, and Bahari were physically present to conduct the Q&A. It was a wonderful event that fully conveyed the intelligence and earnestness of all parties involved in making this movie. But enough about that - you're hear to read about the movie.

Rosewater is the true story of Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari (played by Gael Garcia Bernal), who went to Iran in 2009 to cover the presidential elections. These were the elections that sparked the Green Revolution that took Twitter by storm and brought the world's attention to the fact that Iran was full of educated, disenfranchised youth who wanted to have a say in their country's future and were being denied that opportunity. Bahari was caught in this political maelstrom and summarily arrested and placed in solitary confinement at Evin Prison, under accusations of being a spy for the Western media and charged with fomenting the revolution. His nameless interrogator (played by Kim Bodnia) played a clip of an interview Bahari had done for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. This satirical news segment was used as evidence that he was talking to American spies, further highlighting the dangerous absurdity of his situation, and ultimately leading to the reason why Jon Stewart got involved in this project.

Since Bahari wrote a book about his experience that Jon Stewart has turned into a film, we all know this story ends with him ultimately getting out of prison. But the story of how he got there, and his desperate attempts to cling to his sanity and some semblance of hope as he spent 118 days in solitary confinement is what makes Rosewater such a powerful and moving film. The movie rests squarely on the shoulders of Gael Garcia Bernal, who delivers a simply astonishing performance. His face is a flickering canvas of emotion and there are multiple scenes where he has to go from laughter to despair, from hope to anger, and convey impossible nuances of human emotion, all while wearing a blindfold. Kim Bodnia is equally effective as his ruthless but foolish interrogator, a man who is just trying to get his job done so he can get home to his wife and stop thinking about torturing people for a few hours. It's such an absurd and terrible situation, and despite the immense darkness of the story, Stewart deftly weaves in plenty of humor that allows you to decompress from the horrors of this stifling imprisonment.

This film is an impressive directorial debut and I greatly look forward to seeing what Jon Stewart comes up with next. The movie is not a polished affair - there certainly are times when the camera is too shaky, or montages are done a bit too cleverly to demonstrate technical proficiency at the expense of simple artistry. But all of the core elements of excellent storytelling, superb acting, and evocative cinematography and music are there. The background score by Howard Shore is wonderful, but the occasional blasts of Iranian hip hop are even more vibrant and exciting, challenging you to alter your perceptions of this society and recognize that it is filled with so much more diversity and animation than you would ever imagine from watching cable news stories.

Rosewater captures the beauty of Iranian society along with its ugliness, and this is a movie that has multiple tales to tell. It is a movie about the dangers faced by journalists in the field along with their responsibility to brandish their cameras and tell the world about what they see. It is a movie about an oppressive regime and the clamoring idealists who love their country and demand change. It is a movie about psychological torture and unlawful imprisonment. It is the story of the members of Bahari's family, a group of brave souls who all fought in their own way to change the status quo and paid dearly for it. And with its final shot, Rosewater is the story of the triumph of the human spirit, that refuses to be cowed, will laugh in the face of horror, and remain defiant in the quest for justice.