Stewart adapted the screenplay from Maziar Bahari's "They came to get me: a family's story of love, captivity, and survival," an account of the Iranian-Canadian journalist 118-day detention in Iran prisons. Not only did he write the script, he directed the film. It disappoints.
Rosewater is used in Islam to cleanse. In Jon Stewart's directorial debut Rosewater, the ceremonial perfume diffuses a malevolent odor of torture. Bahari's tormenter doused himself in Rosewater before interrogating him: hence the name he gave his tormentor.
As a director, Stewart has a flair for film. The snag, however, is the script. It is difficult convincingly to evoke an interior dialog that Bahari has with himself, his father or his sister, in solitary confinement.
Bahari's father died at the hands of the Shah's Savak and his sister perished in Ayetollah Khomeni's prisons: both belonged to the Tudah party, Iran's Communist party; both had strong convictions and moral fortitude to resist torture and interrogation until their final breath.
Maziar lacks that intestinal fortitude father and sister had. Saying this, he has an inner strength that at first fails, then sustains him. And yet, it makes us wonder the passivity Gael Bernal Garcia who plays Mousavi shows as he faces his tormentors.
Newsweek sent Bahari to his native Tehran to cover the 2009 elections. It was an eventful moment in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was running for the presidency again. His rival was reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi seemed the likely winner.
But Mousavi was not in good odor for the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, so what looked as though the reformist politician was a shoo-in among the popular vote, he lost to Ahmadinejad in what looked like tricked election.
Protests broke out: Bahari filmed the spate of police violence against angry voters who claimed Ahmadinejed was fraudulently returned to office. It is this reportage that was viewed worldwide, and not Maziar's mock interview for Stewart's The Daily Show that had him arrested and put into solitary confinement.
As an expectant father, he is anxious to admit his wrongs publicly, in order to return to his wife's side, one hand. On the other, he fails; he is not immediately released.
Here the film becomes momentarily alive by the match of wits between Garcia and Rosewater. And yet, it is a sour moment for Rosewater becomes a witless puppet who is so isolated from the outside world, he is suddenly revealed as though he were born yesterday.
Stewart fails to turn Mosavi's inner dialog with his father and his sister more than an obvious theatrical device. Therein lies a serious flaw of the film. Rosewater wears its heart on its sleeve, and Stewart turns Mosavi's ordeal into the old college try for a touchdown for journalism—give us one for the Gipper!
Were it not for an international campaign calling for Bahari's release by Reporters Without Borders and the US in the person of secretary of state Hillary Clinton's calling for his release, in a worldwide effort to shame Iran, he would have stayed in his solitary confinement for more than 118 days.
For comparison, it is worthwhile reading Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal and Sarah Shourd's A Sliver of Light: Three Americans imprisoned in Iran. And then there's the Washington Post journalist Jason Rezian who is being held without charge by Iran, without any immediate hope of release: the authorities say that it is too early because his case is in the preliminary stage of investigation.
Rosewater is used in Islam to cleanse. In Jon Stewart's directorial debut Rosewater, the ceremonial perfume diffuses a malevolent odor of torture. Bahari's tormenter doused himself in Rosewater before interrogating him: hence the name he gave his tormentor.
As a director, Stewart has a flair for film. The snag, however, is the script. It is difficult convincingly to evoke an interior dialog that Bahari has with himself, his father or his sister, in solitary confinement.
Bahari's father died at the hands of the Shah's Savak and his sister perished in Ayetollah Khomeni's prisons: both belonged to the Tudah party, Iran's Communist party; both had strong convictions and moral fortitude to resist torture and interrogation until their final breath.
Maziar lacks that intestinal fortitude father and sister had. Saying this, he has an inner strength that at first fails, then sustains him. And yet, it makes us wonder the passivity Gael Bernal Garcia who plays Mousavi shows as he faces his tormentors.
Newsweek sent Bahari to his native Tehran to cover the 2009 elections. It was an eventful moment in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was running for the presidency again. His rival was reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi seemed the likely winner.
But Mousavi was not in good odor for the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, so what looked as though the reformist politician was a shoo-in among the popular vote, he lost to Ahmadinejad in what looked like tricked election.
Protests broke out: Bahari filmed the spate of police violence against angry voters who claimed Ahmadinejed was fraudulently returned to office. It is this reportage that was viewed worldwide, and not Maziar's mock interview for Stewart's The Daily Show that had him arrested and put into solitary confinement.
As an expectant father, he is anxious to admit his wrongs publicly, in order to return to his wife's side, one hand. On the other, he fails; he is not immediately released.
Here the film becomes momentarily alive by the match of wits between Garcia and Rosewater. And yet, it is a sour moment for Rosewater becomes a witless puppet who is so isolated from the outside world, he is suddenly revealed as though he were born yesterday.
Stewart fails to turn Mosavi's inner dialog with his father and his sister more than an obvious theatrical device. Therein lies a serious flaw of the film. Rosewater wears its heart on its sleeve, and Stewart turns Mosavi's ordeal into the old college try for a touchdown for journalism—give us one for the Gipper!
Were it not for an international campaign calling for Bahari's release by Reporters Without Borders and the US in the person of secretary of state Hillary Clinton's calling for his release, in a worldwide effort to shame Iran, he would have stayed in his solitary confinement for more than 118 days.
For comparison, it is worthwhile reading Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal and Sarah Shourd's A Sliver of Light: Three Americans imprisoned in Iran. And then there's the Washington Post journalist Jason Rezian who is being held without charge by Iran, without any immediate hope of release: the authorities say that it is too early because his case is in the preliminary stage of investigation.