Torture, Perfume and Politics

Cameron Bailey one of the creative directors for TIFF introduced Jon Stewart’s new film Rosewater at the Elgin theatre recently remarked that he thought he had done, “Something quite extraordinary with the film.” I agree. He went on to say that Jon couldn't be with us for Q and A as he had to go back home to his day job. “And we all want him to keep his day job right?” There was loud applause and affirming laughter throughout the theatre.

I enjoyed Rosewater for a lot of reasons. It was one of many political films that I saw this year at the festival. A theme for me at TIFF 2014 – a thoughtful resonance with the international development work that I do.

The film is the story of Mazair Bahari. He’s the Iranian, Canadian journalist who was arrested as a result of a tongue and cheek appearance he’d made with Jason Jones on the Daily Show. The story is not very funny at all, although a fair bit of comic relief is scattered throughout the film. On some level though it's comically tragic what Bahari had to endure. Imprisoned for 118 days for nothing. Much like Oscar Wilde when he penned "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" while jailed for his homosexuality. He wrote, “But each man kills the thing he loves, by each let this be heard. Some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word.”

Don't know about you, but that kind of imprisonment is not something I think I have the stones for, but I guess none of us know how we’ll behave or how our souls might rally until we’re thrown into unimaginable worlds not of our own making.

For me one scene from the film was indeed worth the price of admission. And at 25 bucks a screening at TIFF there better be at least one. Rosewater has plenty.

The title refers to the perfume or cologne that his torturer wears and presumably splashes on each day before heading in for a tough day at the office. When you have misinformation to write, people to torture and fear to spread we all know you wouldn't want to do it without a splash of Middle Eastern Old Spice. The image of a torturer in front of a mirror smacking cologne on his face is utterly absurd and disturbingly human to me. Ideology is always easier to stomach when masked with a hint of rose petals in the air.

Bahari is given a chance to speak with his wife while imprisoned and she tells him that they have had a baby. She tells him the name. In that moment Bahari is no longer imprisoned and wholly surprised by joy. His daughter’s birth and love for his new family envelops him. He's free from the inside out. The bars surround him, but are in the moment meaningless as he celebrates and delights in this new little, life. Stewart cuts to an extended scene of the new Dad dancing in his cell, while his perplexed jailors look on to Leonard Cohen’s song, Dance Me To The End of Love.

Freedom of speech is such a given here. We have no issues really to speak of, although with the way our Prime Minister behaves from time to time it's easy to see how freedom can get squeezed away from us bit by bit. ‎

The fact that shows like Colbert, Jon Stewart, John Oliver and Green Acres are allowed to air without significant push back is remarkable. What we take for granted in the West always makes me smile.

In a moment of narration near the end of Rosewater, Bahari tells us that he has mixed feelings about his release, "The joy is tempered by those I left behind.” It seems like an appropriate response for someone who has shown such a concern for truth and for others.

The film could easily have been entitled The Specialist. It’s what the Iranian interrogator is called in the film.

For me though it’s Bahari who deserves the name. He and his family are indeed extraordinarily special on both sides of the bars.