ROSEWATER

This rather tense drama opens with Iranian journalist  Maziar Bahari been awoken by Investigators in his mother's house in Tehran and subsequently hauled off to jail. Then in a flashback, we see Bahari in London 11 days previously with his heavily pregnant English wife discussing his assignment from Newsweek Magazine to cover the impending Presidential Elections in Iran. They are both aware of the danger particularly as both his late father and sister had both been imprisoned by Ayatollah Khomeini for being communists.

When Bahari arrives in Tehran a chance meeting hooks him up with a young driver who zips him around the city on his motor bike introducing the Journalist to his own liberal minded friends who are concerned that the present corrupt regime will rig the Elections to insure that their Candidate running against the incumbent President fails completely. When their worse fears are realised and the Government falsely declares that the President has been reelected with a landslide majority, the streets of the city are overrun with hundreds of thousands of protesters.  The authorities react by sending out armed troopers to fire into the crowds, and when Bahari captures some of this on video which is shown on US TV, he has become a wanted man.

He is thrown into solitary confinement in Evin prison and is accused of being a spy for the CIA, the MI6, or any other Western organisation his captors claim are set on bringing the downfall of the Iranian Nation. Its a combination of paranoia and panic as the Investigator clutches at straws to make his claims stick. Bahari is blindfolded most of the time, and he establishes some sort of relationship with his tormentor..... known as Rosewater for his predilection for spraying himself liberally with the scent .... who seems to bumble his way through their daily sessions of interrogation without gaining any information or a 'confession' from Bahari after several weeks.

As time passes and 'Rosewater' is pressured by his Superior to get a 'result' he taunts Bahari more and deprives him of anything to read and feeds him with ant infested food, but beyond depriving him of his liberty and hope, he surprisingly never really resorts to physical torture that one may have expected 

This re-telling of the ghastly imprisonment of London based Iranian Newsweek Journalist Maziar Bahari in a Tehran jail for 118 days is the directing/writing debut of TV journalist Jon Stewart who's own celebrity rather overshadows that of his subject. Whilst Stewart does an admirable job, he still doesn't quite succeed in overcoming his main difficulty in maintaining the tension in a true story the greater part of which is just about these two men in jail, that we already know the outcome off, and that Bahari will survive. Gael Garcia Bernal however does an excellent job portraying the scared imprisoned journalist, and Shohrer Aghdashloo steals all her scenes in the cameo role of his mother.

★★★★★★★

A MOST WANTED MAN

In Dutch filmmaker Anton Corbijn's take on John le Carré's spy thriller we are very much aware of who 'the most wanted man' is, but like Gunther Bachmann, a German Intelligence Officer in Hamburg, we never know why he has earned this title. Gunther is very much the 'good man' in this intricate web of international spy/terrorist catching. Gruff, scruffy, chain-smoking and a a fiercely independent operator in charge of a Specialised Terrorist Unit, he is trying to get information from Issa Karpov a half Russian & half Chechen Muslim illegal immigrant before the police or other authorities can capture and imprison him.

Karpov has escaped from a Russian prison where he was brutally tortured and he is portrayed as being the innocent victim of the fact that his father was a notorious terrorist/criminal. Via a sympathetic lawyer, Karpov leads Gunther to Tommy Brue a wealthy Merchant Banker who is trying to extract himself from his late father’s dubious clients who he has inherited.  This include Karpov Snr. who still has a major nest egg stashed away in the Bank. Gunther wants to use Brue and these illegal millions to trap a respected Professor who he suspects is the head of a cell of terrorists. Although both the German Authorities and the C.I.A. reluctantly agree to give Gunther time to do things his way, they obviously do not mean it at all.

It’s a well told thrilling intricate story, although a tad confusing at times, and it keeps you completely engaged until the very end. It’s very much Gunther’s story, which is appropriate as the great Philip Seymour Hoffman plays him magnificently in this, his final movie role.  I’m unsure if Corbijn actually re-edited the movie as a result of Hoffman’s untimely death which occurred after its Sundance Premiere, but anyway Gunther is rarely off the screen. It’s a powerful swansong from this talented actor and even more poignant because he plays yet another disheveled character that seems to be such a perfect fit for him in his very distinguished career.

The cast is made up of Rachel McAdams as the liberal lawyer/social worker, Robin Wright as the cold-hearted double-dealing C.I.A. Agent, Willem Dafoe as the Banker plagued by the sins of his father, Nina Hoss as the very matter-of-fact loyal assistant to Gunther, and handsome Grigoriy Dobrygin as the hunted man who is forced to decide between his life and his religion when he is made to shave his shaggy beard off.

We came away believing the real possibility that if the Gunthers of this world were actually allowed to use Intelligence as opposed to the usual knee-jerk response of sheer brutality to try and deal with the whole scenario of terrorists, then things may even start to get resolved. And the other totally different thought ingrained in our minds as the final credits rolled, was that the world will never quite be the same after the loss of such a very fine actor.

★★★★★★★★

OMAR

In the opening scene we see Omar scaling the impossible high wall that the Occupying Forces have erected that not just separates Palestinians from Jews, but also Palestinians from each other. He is going to meet up with his best friends Tarak and Amjad to plan their first ever terrorist activity.  Tarak mentions a Brigade Commander but it seems evidently when the three of them set out a few nights later, they are acting on their own accord. They succeed in their intentions of killing an Israeli soldier, but that puts them immediately on a Wanted list as there is no way that the authorities are going to let anyone get away with assassinating one of their own.

With great speed they track the three men down in the days that follow and manage to capture Omar, and its soon clear to them that there is a traitor in their midst who has betrayed them.  Behind bars, Omar is subject to some very brutal and vicious torture that is carried out by his interrogators but even so he refuses to give in and name names.  He is however later tricked by one of them dressed as another prisoner to make an incriminating statement that could get him a 90 year jail sentence if he ever went  to Court. Instead he reluctantly agrees to act as a spy for the Israelis and he is freed from jail on the condition that he names and locate the actual gunman.

Whilst this has all been going on Omar has been conducting a secretive and totally pure courtship with Nadia who is Tarak's younger sister.  So far it has just consisted on stolen moments together and the frequent exchange of letters but the couple have declared their love for each other and now want to find the right moment to seek Tarak's approval.

Meanwhile learning of the deal that Omar has been forced to agree too, Tarak decides that Omar should give the Israelis the information that they want and they will set up an ambush when they come and collect.  It all goes horribly wrong and Omar is once again back in jail and beaten up not just by the Israeli authorities this time but also by the other inmates who believe that Omar had collaborated with the other side so that the ambush would fail.  He pleads with his Captors to be let out one last time on the condition that he will not fail to bring them Tarak dead or alive.

Now on the outside again even Nadia accuses him of being the group's traitor, but at the same time, it is obvious that she has secrets of her own to hide.  As does Amjad too, and it looks like with the Israelis close on everyone's trail, no-one will get out of this in tact.

This very taut and tense thriller that is part romance and also part melodrama humanises a very tough way of life in an Occupied country where really no-body is a winner.  Omar, a baker by trade, is too emotional and sensitive to be the hard-bitten killer the other Palestinians want him to be.  He would risk it all, including his life, for Nadia but his faith in her and the 'cause' are so tested, it makes him re-think everything.

Omar is played by a relatively unknown actor Adam

Bakr in a stirring and moving performance.  It helps too that the man is strikingly handsome and extremely fit as constantly trying to avoid the Police he seems to spend half the movie jumping from one roof top to another.  The final scene stuns you into silence, and rounds out what is a rather wonderful gripping movie that was good enough to be nominated for a Best Foreign Picture Oscar.

★★★★★★★★★

Available on Amazon

SHADOW DANCER

This political /crime drama is set in 1990s Belfast, and when Colette McVeigh an active member of the IRA is caught red-handed planting a bomb at an London Underground Station she is 'persuaded' to become an informant for the MI5 in order not just to remain free but to protect her young son's welfare. Her whole family is very involved in terrorist activities and when the authorities ambush one of their operations they suspect a traitor in their midst and Colette senses she is in real danger. But in this fast-paced well-written thriller there is a rather inspired twist in the plot which sets this above most movies in this genre.

American viewers often struggle understanding even the most straight forward English accents so I’m not sure how on earth they are going to cope with this movie which is a narrative about 'The Troubles‘ (the term used for the IRA's armed uprising in Northern Ireland) where most of the characters speak with thick Ulster brogues. This new movie also seemed an odd choice for director James Marsh who picked up an Oscar in 2009 for 'Man On A Wire' (which he followed with the chimp movie 'Project Nim'.)

Clive Owen stars as a British Secret Service Agent, and UK based American Gillian Anderson is his boss, and luckily for us they don’t have to attempt accents.  Andrea Riseborough plays Colette rather stunningly, so luckily for her there is life after starring in Madonna’s heavily panned 'W/E'.  Accents aside it's a rather good nerve-racking yarn, and well worth seeing.

P.S. Reprinted from my SUNDANCE 2012 BLOG as the movie is now showing in US theaters.

★★★★★★★★