Comment

'Road to Guantanamo': The Art of the Political Message in Docudrama

Joan Pedro

On March 9th 2006, the British broadcaster Channel 4 premiered Michael Winterbottom's and Matt Whitecross's compelling docudrama 'Road to Guantanamo'. It was previously screened at the Berlin Film Festival and tells the story of four young British Muslim males from Tipton, three of which were imprisoned and tortured in Afghanistan, and then taken to Guantanamo where the torture not only continued, but worsened.

The film details how the four travel to Pakistan to attend the wedding of the oldest of them (21) in September 2001. However, after hearing the call of an Iman to help their Muslim brothers in Afghanistan and their curiosity to understand events there, they decide to cross the frontier. Amidst a desolate panorama and their incapability to help and offer humanitarian aid, they decide to return to Pakistan. However, the car, which was meant to take them, instead heads into the epicentre of war, Kunduz, where the US army and NATO are about to defeat the Taliban resistance. Subsequently, three of the men are imprisoned and flown to Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo bay which was illegally occupied by the U.S.A in 1903 when the Platt Amendment was imposed by force after the Cuban-Spanish-American War. After spending two years without trial, they were finally and reluctantly released with no charge (nor apology). The three survivors, who came to be known as the 'Tipton Three', tell their own story and version of events. Nothing is known about their friend whom they had lost prior to their capture and subsequent incarceration.

Since it was shown at the Berlin Festival, the polemic over its content has notably increased. By denouncing the illegal abuse of the three prisoners, the film has ignited bipolar reactions. It has been both enthusiastically applauded, especially in Berlin, but it has also been the object of criticism and ridicule.

For instance, the conservative media have criticised the docudrama with their eternal argument against discordant voices, i.e., accusing them of being propagandistic and biased. The Times claimed that the film is 'unbalanced' and stating that 'there is no sense of scepticism or distance, nor an iota of doubt that they weren't telling the truth' (March 4th 2006). In 'Accuracy in Media', a conservative media watchdog which frequently harasses those which avert from the corporate-Republican agenda, they claim that the film is 'a dramatisation based on the un-sworn testimony of three suspected terrorists' (www.aim.org, February 24th 2006). Moreover, by labelling Winterbottom, under a Manichean perspective, as 'Europe's Michael Moore', they try to create a cognitive distortion, which may lead to more criticism of the film. The other label, which is also used by several media outlets, is that it is an, 'anti-American film', proposing an equation in which denouncing torture is equal to being anti-American. Winterbottom does not 'think the film is anti-American because there are plenty of Americans who are against Guantanamo Bay too' (www.news.bbc.co.uk February 15th 2006).

With regards to other critics, Winterbottom states that 'the events as they describe them ... all seem to be fairly indisputable'. He adds 'we're telling their story in their words, and trying to tell their version of what happened to them, just as a lawyer would tell their version of what happened to them' (ibid.).

The story told by the three is controversial and utterly compelling because it questions and contradicts Washington's 'official' version, so widely mediated by large swathes of the mainstream media. The Bush Administration's views are amply adopted and overwhelmingly transmitted by a largely docile mainstream media, which have renounced their duty to question power and legitimacy of 'official statements'. This serves to demonstrate that not only are media messages manufactured and shaped by an elite, but equally they become uniform and repetitious, which may lead to the acceptance of their views due to the lack of alternative ones.

In this context where a unique thinking model in terms of ideas, images, and voices is being globalised in the name of objectivity and freedom, the need for dissident voices is timely. One cannot be neutral in the face of torture, as well as other current situations, because that would suppress the natural human indignation of suffering, war, and any type of terrorism.

The psychological and physical humiliation and pain that is inflicted to the three friends recalls the torture in the Orwellian world of 1984. As one of the US generals says in the film when he wants to extract a confession of guilt: 'We've put people in jail for years and eventually they break'. Torture may lead to a change in the psyche and annihilation of the mind of the victims. However, the three of them have been strong and brave enough to overcome psychological torture and the weight of the past. One of the Tipton three affirms that: 'it either destroys you or it makes you stronger. They made me stronger'. That is why they accepted Winterbottom's proposal to make a film and denounce what had happened to them during the odyssey. Moreover, they proposed to sue Donald Rumsfeld because they believe that their torture had been: 'the result of deliberate and foreseeable action taken by defendant Rumsfeld and senior officers to flout or evade the US constitution ... law ... treaty obligations and long established norms of customary international law' (www.guardian.co.uk October 24th 2004). They also elaborated a 115-page dossier detailing their abuses and treatment. All this makes it worth knowing the story of the 'Tipton Three', since it is the story of human suffering and fight against an inhuman, immoral and illegal activity.

What the docudrama reveals however, is not that torture is simply indicative of US foreign policy, but moreover reveals the US support of torture that is so widespread in today's world, a support that is profoundly undemocratic and immoral. It reveals the Bush administration's unwillingness to uphold international law, especially the Geneva Convention and the Bill of Human Rights. This particular case of torture, which Washington denies, has its roots in their understanding of their place in the world. A belief of being over everything and utterly beyond the law which was made clear when Bush's Administration defended the apocryphal 'right' to eavesdrop US citizens without obtaining a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court arguing that it is the 'president's inherent constitutional power ... to use all necessary and appropriate force' against terrorism (The New York Times, January 17th 2006). This statement reminds me of Nixon's justification to carry out similar programs which, in theory, are aimed to protect national security: 'when the president does it that means that it is not illegal' (www.landmarkcases.org).

In the film there is a balance between drama and facts. The real story is emotional, and the directors have tried to heighten the reaction of the viewer, which is something characteristic of cinema. The characters are represented in a humanised way, which makes the audience approach torture as the inhuman and savage practice that it is. The fact that they tell the story themselves brings it closer to us. Therefore, it makes it is easy to empathise with the 'Tipton Three' and feel their suffering during the ordeal. The docudrama is hard and disturbing, as the real life of prisoners in Guantanamo inevitably is. Thus, the importance of this televised iconic representation lies in that it represents a real story and is told by three human beings. In a reality of image prevalence and the image's capability to create emotions, reactions and concernment, Road to Guantanamo may be an effective critical voice, which adds to others.

While most of the mainstream press is drowsy, the film industry is opening to critical and political perspectives, for example, Good Night and Good Luck, Syriana, Crash, and Alex Gibney's fantastic documentary Enron. There are historical examples also, Battleship Potemkin, Mr. Smith goes to Washington, Advise and Consent, In the Name of the Father, Spanish-produced Soldiers of Salamina, and several Oliver Stone films, etc. It's a good moment for cinema to produce art with political message under its own characteristics. Of course, pressure upon the media, which have resigned to fulfil their function to offer reliable information cannot cease.

So far over 4000 people, including eight Nobel Prize winners, have already signed a petition requesting that the UN Commission on Human Rights close prisons where human rights are violated with immediate effect.

You can also sign it at: http://www.hhrr.info/index.php?lang=2.

'Road to Guantanamo' can be accessed and downloaded from the Internet and was released in the cinema and on DVD on March 27th 2006.

Joan is a second year student in Journalism at the Southampton Solent University, England.