Rosewater
How Jon Stewart, the award-winning host and comedic anchor of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” for 16 years, came to make his feature directorial debut with a harrowing true story of a journalist who was imprisoned in Iran for over four months in 2009, is so fascinating in and of itself, that it could make for a rich piece of cinema on its own. As a fan of Stewart’s for pretty much his entire “Daily Show” run, it’s hard to separate that adoration from any objective analysis of his film, “Rosewater,” but the truth is, Stewart’s humanity and sharp political awareness is vital to the film’s success. And indeed, it’s the personal connection Stewart has with the story that makes the film all the more potent.
Back to the story on screen in “Rosewater,” however. The film is based on the book, Then They Came For Me, by Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian journalist who went to Iran for Newsweek magazine to cover the 2009 Iranian Presidential elections. The election was significant because of the challenge Mir-Hossein Mousavi gave to then president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which inspired a grassroots movement among younger Iranians looking for change. After it was announced that Ahmadinejad was the victor, despite Mousavi seeming to have an advantage, protests erupted, and Bahari was right in the middle of it. After a riot at a government building led to a protester being killed, which Bahari captured on camera, and sent as part of his report to Newsweek, Bahari is arrested and taken to prison, where he is interrogated and tortured for four months under accusations of being a spy working for the US government.
That by itself is a compelling, heart-rending tale to tell, especially when we learn that Bahari’s father and sister were, in earlier times, also prisoners of the Iranian government– his father under the Shah in the ’50s, and his sister under Ayatollah Khomeini in the ’80s. The scenes of Bahari (played by Gael GarcÃa Bernal in a fine, nuanced performance) thinking, and sometimes interacting, with them while in solitary confinement are powerful times in the movie when Stewart (who also wrote the sincere, intelligent screenplay) are some of the most effective in the film, linking Bahari’s story to a greater narrative of wanting to change Iran politically from the inside. However, as anyone familiar with the story knows, what really makes the film a labor of love is the personal connection Stewart feels towards it. You see, one of the things Bahari’s interrogators use against him is an interview he did with “The Daily Show’s” Jason Jones where he joked about being a spy, talking with another spy (Jones).
That’s enough to really hit home with someone, but Stewart isn’t just drawn to the story for personal reasons. The film fits into a larger arc of what Stewart has turned “The Daily Show” into over the years, which is a forum to try and hold American journalism accountable for it’s mistakes, and to push it towards some semblance of integrity. That integrity is shown in spades by Bahari, who is trying to show the truth of what could be a turning point in his home country’s history. That he gets in trouble as a result of it is perhaps to be expected, given the country’s deep suspicion of the West (seen clearly during the interrogation scenes between Bahari and a man (played fiercely by Kim Bodnia) he comes to simply call “Rosewater,” because of the scent he wears), but that makes his ability to stand up to his rigorous interrogation and torture sessions, for as long as he does, all the more laudable. For Bahari, there’s a larger reason for holding out; once he was released, he made his purpose in his work to illuminate the plights of journalists found in the same situation he was in. A noble purpose, to be sure, and one he finds a like-minded advocate for in Stewart, whose first film out of the gate isn’t an exceptional piece of filmmaking (though there are visual ideas and images that are unforgettable and imaginative), but it is a genuine labor of love, which can be felt in every frame of the movie. It’s an inspiring achievement.
