I like The Daily Show. I like Jon Stewart. I like political commentary and political
satire. So why is it that I don’t really
like Rosewater, the political film
directed by Jon Stewart of Daily Show
fame. Well, and I can’t believe I’m
going to say this, but it’s because the film reminds me of American Sniper. Yep. I’m comparing a film beloved by conservative
masses to a film made by one of the most optimistically liberal voices in media
today. And while Stewart’s directorial
debut isn’t quite as lifeless and drab as Clint Eastwood’s latest, it suffers
from many of the same issues, most notably a lack of narrative drive or a
compelling protagonist.
To those unfamiliar with the story of Maziar Bahari, he was
a journalist for Newsweek magazine who covered the Iranian elections in
2009. After filming riots in the streets
following the election, Bahari was imprisoned by the Iranian government and
accused of being an American spy seeking to discredit the Iranian government. He was then psychologically tortured for four
months, until a social media campaign forced the Iranian government to release
him or risk losing face.
To the film’s credit, Bahari’s story has a bit more of a
through line than Chris Kyle’s, as Bahari has a definitive antagonist in the
form of his warden and torturer, and his journey to find strength is at least
salvageable from the emotional nullity the film has to offer. However, the film allocates its time and
resources much too heavily toward Bahari’s time spent in his cell, oddly
hallucinating family members who tell him to keep to his convictions. The torture scenes lack any sort of passion
to make them engaging, and Bahari’s true savior, the media campaign for his
release, feels like a deus ex machina footnote at the end of a barely existent
character arc.
Jon Stewart’s personal politics are no big secret, and yet
he seems to have so visibly restrained himself in the course of making Rosewater that the film has no political
drive until the film’s final shots, and that is too little too late. The final shots tell us that there are still
people working within Iran to expose the injustices of their government, but
that revolution is unseen and forgotten after the first act, making that ending
seem tacked on and out of place in light of the survivor story we just
witnessed. And the beginning of the film
shows a lot of promise in that respect, demonstrating how the Iranian
government represses free speech and the underground forces who seek to spread
the word about the country’s internal injustices. However, almost all of this is eliminated
once Bahari is imprisoned, paradoxically making Bahari a stronger character for
finally having an arc, yet robbing the film of its sense of purpose.
Rosewater feels like
a film I should like, but I simply can’t get behind the notion that simply
recounting true events makes for good filmmaking. Jon Stewart is an intelligent man who likely
has a bright career ahead of him, hopefully making more films, because the
potential for greatness is definitely here.
However, in removing a political voice for the majority of the film’s
runtime, from events that are inherently political, the film ends up feeling
pointless as a work of fiction. Much
like American Sniper, Rosewater feels like it would have been
better presented as a documentary, because without a stronger character focus
and a more emotionally driven narrative, the whole production feels more than a
little stale and lifeless.
Sad to see Jon Stewart leaving The Daily Show? Leave your
bemoaning in the comments below.
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