Jon Stewart demonstrates directorial eye in ‘Rosewater’

WASHINGTON — There is a fine line between comedy and captivity.

“Daily Show” host Jon Stewart manages to walk it in his directorial debut, “Rosewater,” a brutal
interrogation drama with brief moments of levity.

“Even within the darkest of stories, there’s humor, there’s absurdity, there’s all sorts of things,” Stewart
tells WTOP.

“Rosewater” follows the true story of Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari, who chronicled his own
118-day imprisonment in the 2011 memoir “Then They Came for Me,” a title echoing Martin Niemoller’s
anti-Nazi poem.

Like the book, the film is set in 2009 Tehran, as the Iranian people take to the streets to protest the re-
election of then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a ballot outcome they view as rigged.

Bahari (Gael García Bernal) captures the riots on camera, only to be arrested
and brutally interrogated by his captors, who smell of rosewater.

His lead interrogator (Kim Bodnia) points to a deadpan interview Bahari gave with “Daily Show”
correspondent Jason Jones as “proof” that he is a Western spy. The captors have clear instructions —
“Don’t just take his blood. Take his hope” — but for Bahari, that wasn’t an option.

“When I was imprisoned in Iran, I promised myself, when I come out one day, I
will talk about what is going on to journalists not only in Iran but around
the world,” Bahari tells WTOP.

Full Interview:

After his release, Bahari kept in close contact with Stewart, who met him for breakfast in New York to
discuss his progress in writing the book and consider the idea of adapting it into a movie.

“I knew it was a relevant story the minute it happened,” Stewart says. “Even from within the context of
the Green Movement, the idea that these
millions of Iranians took to the streets, not for overthrow … they wanted
their votes. They wanted to be citizens and not subjects.”

Soon, Stewart realized it would be much faster to make the film himself.

“Ultimately, the more glacial
pace of movie-making, in terms of trying to get other people to write it and
direct it, became frustrating. Since we very much thought this film should be
out in our lifetimes (pause for laughter), to try to expedite it was really
the issue more than anything else.”

Stewart wrote the screenplay, enlisting some feedback from “Star Trek” director J.J.
Abrams.

He then took a leave of absence from “The Daily
Show” to direct the movie in Jordan. His celebrity stature no doubt helped to
recruit some serious talent for his film crew: cinematographer Bobby Bukowski
(“Arlington Road”), art director Gerald Sullivan (“Moonrise Kingdom”), composer Howard Shore (“The
Lord of the Rings”) and
editor Jay Rabinowitz (“Requiem for a Dream”).

While another Iran hostage movie — “Argo” (2012) — joked that directing is
so easy you can teach a rhesus monkey to do it, any filmmaker knows it’s a much more involved
process.

“It wasn’t about placing an auteurial, directorial vision and stamp on it,” Stewart says. “It was about
what’s the best way, what’s the best iteration of this story and how can we tell it best, so that the
audience can be viscerally engaged in it … more than it was an exercise in stylization or genre.”

There are moments that “Rosewater” feels like the work of a first-time director,
dipping to black between scenes, rather than clever transitions. What’s more, the interrogations lack
the danger of Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” (2012), at times not going far enough with the
violence (body blows off-screen), at other times going too far (slowly pushing in on a door as we
hear screams behind it, then cutting to show the violence, rather than holding on the door for a far
scarier shot).

Fortunately, these flaws are outnumbered by moments where Stewart demonstrates a keen visual eye:

Prison Hallucinations. Stewart blocks the actors masterfully to portray Bahari’s hallucinations,
in which he imagines his family members telling him to persevere. In one such scene, a prison guard
steps into the frame, covering up the figment of Bahari’s father. With the camera still rolling, the guard
then steps away, and the father figment is gone. This in-camera “disappearance” is more effective than
cutting from Bahari to his father. The long take maintains the magic.

Symbolic Shadow Lines. During an exterior shot of the prison courtyard,
Bahari leans against a stone wall, as the sun creates a diagonal shadeline that
paints him in half light, half dark. The shot recalls an identical shot in
“The Shawshank Redemption” (1994), as Andy Dufresne stands in a similar diagonal
shadow, trying to decide whether he should “get busy living, or get busy
dying.”

Surrealist Pop Culture. Early in the film, Bahari walks down the streets of Tehran, as
superimposed images of “Dr. Strangelove” and other pop culture icons appear in the windows. Stewart
also has Bahari’s captors rifle through his apartment, claiming that everything from Leonard Cohen
records to “Sopranos” DVDs qualify as pornography. These claims are intercut with flashbacks of
Bahari receiving the items as gifts. Later, he dances in his prison cell with Cohen’s music playing in his
head.

Technology Commentary. Perhaps most consistent is Stewart’s commentary
on the democratizing power of technology. Throughout the film, he cuts
between reality and camera footage, creating a self-reflexive look at how
average folks can shake the world. At one point, Stewart shows a
little boy with a cellphone camera. At another, he shows Twitter hashtags
popping up all across the city.

After 15 years of political satire on Comedy Central, Stewart knows a thing or
two about world events. And, to his credit, he goes out of his way to give
“Rosewater” some proper historical context.

In creating a narrative, a filmmaker must have antagonists; in this case, the
oppressive Iranian interrogators. But Stewart tries to explain their paranoia
after having been burnt by the West before.

“The scenario they concocted where Maziar was the focal point of Western
saboteurs spreading lies through paid journalists … was a real one that occurred in 1953 when the
United States and Britain organized a coup against (Mohammad) Mossadegh, who was a
democratically elected leader.”

Still, Stewart makes no mistake about the film’s present-day antagonists,
condemning Ahmadinejad’s government for its oppression, and siding with both
Bahari and the Iranian protestors.

“Was there historical basis for their theory? Absolutely. Was it in any way
being executed at that time with Maziar Bahari? No. It’s a convenient excuse
for regimes like that to play upon those past prejudices and events,” Stewart says.

Bahari felt this historical context was crucial to the film’s authenticity.

“It’s very important for the film … to not make it like a typical Hollywood
film, where you don’t see any shades of gray. Jon didn’t want to make
‘Transformers.’ In order to humanize the characters and make them more
believable, you had to give them some sort of background and some sort of legitimacy.”

Indeed, the film paints the interrogators as more scared than Bahari, who
actually exploits their sexual oppression to his advantage in a comical
exchange befitting of Stewart’s funny bone.

That funny bone surfaced once more when WTOP asked what was next for his career. Stewart and
Bahari channeled Abbott and Costello, spitting punchlines back and forth:

 

Stewart: “I like bossing people around in any context, whether it’s film or television. Or maybe
even open up an ice cream shop. As long as I’m in charge. As long as I get to be the manager.”

Bahari: “He just got me a ticket to North Korea.”

Stewart: “I was just going to see if we can have a sequel!”

Bahari: “Rosewater, Part Deux.”

Stewart: “It’s going to be Maziar and Dennis Rodman. We’re going to have the two of them. It’s
got more of a buddy cop vibe.

Fraley: “Are you going to dye your hair for that?”

Stewart: “No, no. We’re going to let Rodman be the eccentric.”

 

“Rosewater” is certainly eccentric, even if it wears its heart on its sleeve. But while it may not join the
pantheon of classic American cinema, it’s an important tale for the world to see, told by a debut director
with enough visual storytelling chops to mold a gripping movie-going experience.

And now, your moment of zen:

★ ★ ★

The above rating is based on a 4-star scale. See where this film ranks in
Jason’s Fraley on Film. Follow WTOP Film Critic Jason Fraley on Twitter @JFrayWTOP, read his blog The Film Spectrum, listen
Friday
mornings on 103.5 FM and see a full list of his stories on our “Fraley on Film” page.

 

Jason Fraley

Hailed by The Washington Post for “his savantlike ability to name every Best Picture winner in history," Jason Fraley began at WTOP as Morning Drive Writer in 2008, film critic in 2011 and Entertainment Editor in 2014, providing daily arts coverage on-air and online.

Federal News Network Logo
Log in to your WTOP account for notifications and alerts customized for you.

Sign up