MAURITANIAN PROVIDES SPOTLIGHT

GITMO PRISONERS DESERVE CIVIL RIGHTS

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The Guantanamo Bay detention facility for suspected terrorists violates the United States Constitution.

Director Kevin Macdonald shows how civil rights became subordinate to the fanatical pursuit by the government to hold someone accountable for the 9/11 terrorist attack, in The Mauritanian (2021).

Tahar Rahim stars as Prisoner 760, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, the suspected recruiter of the 9/11 hijackers.

Rahim shows how years of confinement in the military detention facility in Guantanamo Bay scarred Slahi psychologically, but ultimately, Slahi’s prison guards did not defeat his spirit.

Jodie Foster stars as American constitutional law attorney, Nancy Hollander, who attempts to ensure military prisoners are granted the constitutional right not to be arbitrarily detained.

Slahi and Hollander gradually build an understanding, before all truth is revealed.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays, Stuart Couch, the military lawyer prosecuting the Gitmo prisoner.

And Shailene Woodley plays Hollander’s legal associate, Teri Duncan. Woodley had previously starred as Edward Snowden’s girlfriend in Snowden (2016).

Casting matches these costars well, but then throws in a number of minor supporting actors to make the costars more prominent.

Foster does well to portray the idealistic senior constitutional lawyer, with a no-nonsense uncompromising, unapologetic self-image.

Cumberbatch finds the mask of a military trained lawyer, and becomes a technocrat willing to put God and country beyond reproach.

Woodley finds acting room in between the two costars.

Macdonald relies on intermittent aesthetic shots to keep the narrative moving without losing a gritty documentary tone and atmosphere put to the dramatizations.

Clever scene transitions, such as from the rear view mirror of one character’s car to that of another character’s, gives pace to the narrative to make up for the slower scenes of the legal drama: discussing strategy and shuffling through thousands of pages of documents.

One scene transition is an obvious intertextual reference to Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and director David Lean’s use of continuity editing techniques.

Macdonald uses continuity editing in several different instances by matching actions or following objects from one scene to the next.

A score and background sounds are layered on top of scenes.

The details are all important to the script with the actors burrowing through several dozen boxes of evidence, while the camera takes different angle shots and zooms in on the impenetrability of the walls around the characters or the food being eaten.

Several scenes are spent explaining the real world hesitation in taking unpopular legal cases. 

Initially, Benedict masks up as an American military officer willing to implement rough justice to punish and deter terrorists, but he does so with trepidation.

Macdonald uses natural colours and natural light without allowing the aesthetic eye of the camera lens to overpower the gritty biopic tone of the content.

The main linear narrative explains the legal drama, while short and much longer flashbacks fill in the prisoner’s back story.

This film shows an important snap shot of the often forgotten moral dilemma involving military prisoners detained in the war on terror.

The Mauritanian (2021) is streaming in Canada on Apple TV.