Jon Stewart struggled to find his place as an actor, and he’s very self-deprecating about his appearances in the likes of Big Daddy and Death to Smoochy. I was a fan of his MTV talk show but he really found his calling as a host of “The Daily Show” so respected that no one even remembers that someone else hosted that show before. I think he may have also found his place in film as a director.
Rosewater is the story of Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari (Gael Garcai Bernal), whose appearance on “The Daily Show” led the Iranian government to interrogate him as a suspected spy. Bahari’s story exemplifies the hopeless situation of enhanced interrogation, when even complying doesn’t satisfy the captor (Kim Bodnia). At least we know that this one resolves, because Bahari wrote a book on which the film is based and he’s appearing at film festivals.
The light touch Rosewater takes towards the absurdity of Bahari’s situation must have come from Stewart. It came from everywhere, from Bahari, from the facts, from Bernal and Bodnia, and the writer/director, but this is exactly what makes “The Daily Show” work. They remark on the absurdity of politics, but that doesn’t make it any less true. There is most certainly a place for this in cinema.
The absurdity comes from the interrogators’ violent intensity and lack of worldly knowledge. They’ve been so sheltered by the Iranian government that they don’t know that “The Daily Show” isn’t real, they don’t know what Newsweek is, or even what “The Sopranos” was. How do you prove your innocence to a person who thinks American television is documentary?
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You can ultimately laugh at the weakness revealed through the captors’ insecurity, the desperation to maintain the bravado of a “superior nation.” It’s essentially a house of cards of oppression, but that means Bahari is faced with not even telling them what they want to hear, but telling them what might work.
There’s an effective visual flair to Rosewater. The recent history of Iran is depicted on reflections in New York walls as Bernal walks down the street. The influence of Twitter is depicted visually. A lot is filmed handheld, but reasonably steady, so when a static shot jump cuts it feels more like a narrative break. There’s a little low-res video mixed in with the cinema quality stuff, for a bit of documentary flourish.
Interestingly, we even get a small peek into the process of a “Daily Show” interview. Jason Jones plays himself and we see how he acts when the cameras stop rolling, and coaches the subject on the best way to handle his schtick. It’s not faking the interview, but you can get a perfectly usable silly interview by being cooperative and professional.
Rosewater gives us a relevant portrait of Iran and illuminates a situation that is still going on, by putting it in a format that more people will receive than straight news. But really, that’s just the added benefit. It’s a good story about persevering, and using one of our most powerful tools to do so: humor.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
