Rosewater - Jon Stewart
Unedited Thoughts - This is part of my unedited thoughts series.
We are thrown in the deep end of this film having no idea of time or place. We don’t even have any idea who the characters are. We know who we should care about though as the lead is arrested on ridiculous charges. Possessing porno – The Sopranos.
There are some great time jumps back as we wind our way towards the opening scene. The film continues long after this. The absurdity would be funny if it wasn’t so deadly serious.
The film makers play with our pre-conceived expectations. There is a great scene at the start where one of the producers is indignant at the manipulation of the young poor kids because they know nothing better – until our hero points out that the man he is talking about is a UK citizen and educated in England – the film focuses on these things that we think we all know.
The interrogation scenes are not the terrible brutal ones that you would expect but they are traumatic none-the-less. This is psychological torture. But it turns around and while it is terrible for our lead you end up feeling sorry for the fate of the torturers as well because they are just cogs in a machine and they have no escape either.
There are some interesting scenes in the jail where Maziar talks to the imagined characters of his father and older sister who were taken and died in the same jail. This is an interesting take on the sanity (or lack there of) of Maziar – but it also lets us meet his memories of his relatives – cool stuff.
In the end this film doesn’t real hit home. It does some interesting things and makes you think of some issues in a different light – but torturers are still torturers. I’d say it is a thought provoking film with an interesting premise but no great plot beats.
