June 23rd, 2008, 3 Comments »
After arriving in Chicago, we spent a quiet evening in at the swish and oddly-gothic Hotel Sax (”Monsieurs Lestat and Impaler, your table is ready in the Crimson Lounge”). We watched a movie in our room (reasonably priced at $10): “Rendition”. I’m going to borrow a plot summary from Roger Ebert’s very positive (and highly politicized) review:
Director Gavin Hood’s terrifying, intelligent thriller “Rendition” puts a human face on the practice. We meet Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally), an Egyptian-born American chemical engineer who lives in Chicago. He and his wife, Isabella (Reese Witherspoon), have a young son, and she is in advanced pregnancy with another child. After boarding a flight home from a conference in Cape Town, South Africa, Anwar disappears from the airplane, his name disappears from the passenger list and Isabella hears nothing more from him…
The movie sets into motion a chain of events caused by the illegal kidnapping. Isabella, played by Witherspoon with single-minded determination and love, contacts an old boyfriend (Peter Sarsgaard) who is now an aide to a powerful senator (Alan Arkin). Convinced the missing man is innocent, the senator intervenes with the head of U.S. intelligence (Meryl Streep). She responds in flawless neocon-speak, simultaneously using terrorism as an excuse for terrorism and threatening the senator with political suicide. Arkin backs off.
Meanwhile, in the unnamed foreign country [where El-Ibrahimi is held], we meet a CIA pencil-pusher named Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal), who has little experience in field work but has taken over the post after the assassination of his boss. His job is to work with and “supervise” the torturer Abasi.
Canadians will, of course, be reminded of the unfortunate Maher Arar. Coincidentally, I misspelled his name when I searched for him, and the first result is entitled “Extraordinary rendition”.
The film has a lot in common with Syriana–multiple plot lines featuring government cover-ups, a large and impressive cast and plenty of violence and torture. It isn’t as accomplished as Syriana, mostly because of a hokey third-act plot trick, and a far less ambiguous attitude toward its subject matter.
Still, I enjoyed it as an exotic thriller, and appreciated the very relevant theme of the fluidity of individual morality. I also liked seeing Morocco again. Much of the film was shot in Marrakech, and, remarkably, one scene was shot in Essaouira, the small town where we lived for three months.
Rendition got average reviews from the critics (Metacritic: 55, Rotten Tomatoes: 47) and, like other films about Iraq, failed miserably at the box office. I can’t wholeheartedly endorse the film, but it’s worth a look.
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April 30th, 2008, 6 Comments »
This month’s Esquire features the finest example of magazine writing that I’ve seen in years. It is Chris Jones’s “The Things That Carried Him”, and it is extraordinary journalism. Jones tells the story of how the body of Sergeant Joe Montgomery makes its way from a Baghdad suburb to its final resting place in a grave in Indiana.
I think it’s a masterpiece. It’s extremely moving without being saccharine or twee. It’s a military story, but utterly without jingoism or indictment. It’s wonderfully observed. I love the parenthetical sentence in these two paragraphs:
The Reverend Doug Wallace offered a brief prayer, and then a band of kilted bagpipers played “Amazing Grace.” (A freight train passed nearby, but the engineer left his finger off the horn at the crossing.) Three recorded songs were played over loudspeakers, including “Hurt,” by Nine Inch Nails, before Reverend Wallace said a few more words, and then Dawson gave his men the signal.
The seven soldiers stood in a stiff line and fired three volleys each. This is a part of the ritual they practice again and again. The seven weapons should sound like one. When the shots are scattered — “popcorn,” the soldiers call it — they’ve failed, and they will be mad at themselves for a long time after. On this day, with news cameras and hundreds of sets of sad eyes trained on them, they were perfect. After the final volley, Huber bent down and picked up his three polished shells from the grass.
Jones tells the story in reverse, starting with the man digging Montgomery’s grave, and ending with his squad in a Baghdad suburb. He documents each step of Montgomery’s journey home. We meet pilots, coroners, family members–everyone the sergeant’s death touches.
If I taught a non-fiction creative writing course, I’d make this required reading. I often criticize journalists on this site, but it’s pieces like this that remind me of the heights to which they can ascend.
UPDATE: Here’s a short interview with the writer.
6 Comments »
November 14th, 2007, 3 Comments »
I’ve really been enjoying the McCarter Theatre blog. I like that, although they’re an American theatre, they still spell ‘theatre’ with an ‘re’ ending.
In any case, I was recently riveted by this ten minute video interview with playwright Joshua Casteel, a former US army interrogator who worked at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. He describes an unexpected conversation with one of his prisoners, which eventually motivated him to apply for conscientious objector status.
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September 21st, 2007, 5 Comments »
Early in my Gnomedex talk, I made a little joke about currencies:
This [telegram]was sent in 1954, and at the time it cost about $2.50 Canadian. That’s about $2.57 in US dollars. Yes, our currency was stronger until about 1960. I don’t know if you’ve looked at exchange rates lately, but we’re coming for you.
Yesterday, the Canadian and American dollars achieved parity for the first time in 31 years.
That’s kind of shocking, isn’t it? I remember a time in the eighties when the Canadian dollar was worth about US $0.70. What a difference a war makes, eh? Yes, I know that’s not the only reason, but I liked the sound of it.
I’m trying to rack my brain for stuff we should order from the US that one can’t get in Canada. I’ve got nothing. But, then, I currently have a paucity of possessions.
Here’s a blog post from the National Post that summarizes and links to sundry American responses to our monetary equality.
5 Comments »
September 2nd, 2007, 2 Comments »
I just read this article about the released South Korean missionaries’ somber homecoming:
Relatives of the two men held their portraits as they stood on either side of one of the remaining 19 hostages, Yoo Kyung-sik, who apologized to the nation during a news conference.
“We went to Afghanistan to practise sharing love,” Yoo said. “However, we were kidnapped accidentally, and caused the whole country to worry. We also apologize to the government.”
Good for them. Anybody who acts irresponsibly and requires their government to expend resources–particularly extraordinary resources–to rescue them ought to publicly apologize.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a rescued out-of-bounds skier or hiker apologize for their behaviour. Maybe they do and it doesn’t get reported? I also think they should pay every penny of the cost of their rescue. I guess that price tag would be pretty huge for those 19 Koreans.
2 Comments »
May 14th, 2007, No Comments »
It’s the rare link round-up here at DB.com. These are some of the links that folks emailed me over the past few weeks. Some were marketing pitches, some were just things that people thought I’d be interested in.
All of them are of passing interest, though in some cases I’m including them because I feel guilty for not replying for such a long time.
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