TiptonThree Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Review: The Road to Guantanamo
Filed under: Documentary », Drama », Foreign Language », Independent », Theatrical Reviews », Cinematical Indie »
The Road to Guantanamo is certainly remarkable for its relevancy to the ongoing controversy of the Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, but it is a notable film for other reasons besides its timeliness and availability to political exploitation. Directed by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross, it is the former's most effective film (and the latter's first) in that it masterfully displays a grasp of cinema's capacities. While I disagree with most of what critics (including our own Karina) are saying of its cultural significance, I do agree with and insist on the recommendation that it be seen.
I think that it needs to be appreciated foremost as an astonishing tale of survival, a kind of modern Odyssey with a touch of the old mistaken-identity scenario, presented in a pointedly discriminating first-person narrative. Though based on a true story, the film maintains a one-sided fallibility that keeps it fairly subjective. Sure, it could be used in the campaign against the camps, but not as evidence. It is simply a visual testimony.
Tribeca Review: The Road to Guantanamo
The Road to Guantanamo is a thoroughly engrossing, sufficiently cathartic, but frustratingly one-sided indictment of the American military's appalling treatment of foreign "enemy combatants". Michael Winterbottom (coming off Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, which might have been inexcusably silly if it hadn't been unbelievably dull), co-directed with longtime collaborator Mat Whitecross, and the two combine documentary-style interview footage with haunting, disturbing, and surprisingly beautiful reenactments, to tell the story of the Tipton Three -- three British-born Muslims mistaken for Taliban and imprisoned at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for over two years. Winterbottom, the renowned directorial chameleon whose other art house oddity of 2005 was the concert film/episodic porn 9 Songs, proves once again that if anyone is better at polarizing an audience, nobody does it with more style. He's got a potentially stunning piece of propaganda on his hands here -- it's just too bad he hasn't made a better film.
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