In the midst of rebellion and upheaval in Tehran’s town square, Davood (Dimitri Leonidas) turns to his associate, Maziar (Gael Garcia Bernal), and addresses the closed video camera in Maziar’s hand. “You’re the only one with the real weapon,” he declares in frustration, “yet you choose not to use it.”
Based on a true story, Rosewater is about Maziar Bahari, a foreign correspondent writing for Newsweek Magazine who returns to his home in Iran in time for the federal election and finds the country on the verge of revolution. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the reigning president of Iran, had been in heated contention with opponent Mir-Hossein Mousavi. When Ahmadinejad is declared the winner under suspicious circumstances and shaky poll results, widespread rioting ensues.
Maziar takes Davood’s words to heart, and presses the red record button on his video camera in an attempt to simply do his job. Collectively, the audience cringes, knowing the consequences he will soon have to face. Maziar’s thuggish tormentors accuse him of being an American spy sending top-secret information back to the United States. While Maziar begs and pleads with his interrogators in a futile attempt at reasoning, he starts to question his own ability to survive. Will he ever get to see his family again? We start to see the rise and fall of his internal need to persevere, and, through a truly captivating display of emotional and physical torment, we look on as the human spirit is put to the test.
Considering the horrors that journalists have faced while reporting in the Middle East (in recent news, for example, James Foley became the sixty -ninth journalist to be executed in Syria since 2011), the release of Rosewater came at an appropriate time. One of the few politically relevant drama’s to grace the festival this year, it serves educational purposes.
Being Jon Stewart’s first feature film, the actual design of the movie was nothing special. The editing was reminiscent of a lush travel commercial, and the film’s ability to maintain the audiences attention occasionally fell short. Nevertheless,the worldly-significance of the movie seems to take precedent, making Rosewater a film of particular importance.
Verdict: What it lacks in cinematic technique, it more than makes up for in the significance of it’s message.
