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The Road To Guantanamo
Directed by: Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Riz Ahmed
Genre:
Documentary/Drama
Run Time: 95
min.
Release Date:
June 2006
On The Web:
Official
Site
Teaser:
Movie Trailer
Reviewed by
Byron Merritt |
How much is too much when
considering the price of our freedoms and liberties? Do all people,
regardless of race, creed, sex, ethnicity, or political affiliation,
deserve legal representation? Watch THE ROAD TO GUANTANAMO and
then ask yourself these questions.
The Road to Guantanamo is about a group of friends known as The
Tipton Three, Middle Eastern men who live in England and decide to
travel to Pakistan where one of them plans to wed. Although they start
out as four, one quickly disappears as they travel across the border
into Afghanistan on a roadtrip. Unfortunately for them, this was right
at the time the U.S. began its battle with the Taliban. Bombs drop
around Shafiq, Ruhel, Monir, and Asif, the young men who start out on
this hellish journey. They quickly try to get away but are led into even
more dangerous areas by suspicious men with guns who lock them up in
cargo trucks or force them to trek into the desert. Soon, U.S. and
British forces arrive and take Shafiq, Ruhel, and Asif into custody. The
whereabouts of Monir are never discovered. His body is never found.
Filmed using actors and the original Tipton three, the documentary is a
disturbing treatise on prisoners of war. That we see the bizarre
circumstances leading to their "arrest" and incarceration is even more
disturbing considering these men were officially residents of England.
But because they have Middle Eastern blood in their veins, they are
immediately labeled as terrorists or Taliban fighters or (unbelievably)
Al Qaeda.
The road that The Three travel is horrifying. Death hits near them on
every stretch, nearly killing one or all of them at some point; whether
its dysentery, Allied bombs, or torture.
It is this last that we become painfully aware of as The Three enter
Cuba and the "Gitmo" detention center. Never having been charged with a
single crime, nor having evidence against them, the U.S. forces
continually inflict terrible pains on the men. Isolation. Loud music for
hours and hours. Sitting in the scalding heat day in and day out. Being
knocked down time and again during interrogations when they don't give
the interrogators the information they "want to hear." Held for a little
over two years, The Three are finally released without charges and
returned to England. No apologies. No legal recourse. Nothing is
available to them.
All of this sounds completely un-American and cruel. And it is. But
there are some interesting points hit upon in the documentary that are
simply left dangling, leaving it up to the audience to decide what they
mean. Most importantly is that there's really no explanation as to why
The Three decided to go into Afghanistan in the first place. They just
do. One might assume that they did it as a kind of fun roadtrip that
went terribly awry. But this isn't stated outright.
Still, the cost of freedom is implicitly felt throughout the film as the
audience watches these men denied any sort of legal representation and
then subjected to torture techniques that skim the legalities of The
Geneva Convention.
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Image from The Road To
Guantanamo
DVD cost: $14.99
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Film Review Stew
Favorite? No.
Stew Poo-Poo? No.
Newsworthy:
Two of the actors and two
of the ex-detainees were detained temporarily and interrogated at the
airport by the British police when they returned from the Berlinale-festival
where the movie got the Silver Bear. According to BBC-news, Riz Ahmed
said he was asked if he intended to make any more political films.
Movie Quote: "You
are now the property of the U.S. Marine Corp!"
Other Actors/Actresses
from The Road To Guantanamo
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