On the Film Zero Dark Thirty and Torture Essay

thesis writing help

On the Film Zero Dark Thirty and Torture Essay

Zero Dark Thirty is a 2013 film directed by award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow, and is a narration about the multiple time-skips of how Maya (Jessica Chastain), a new CIA recruit, beat the odds which led to Osama Bin Laden’s ultimate death. “Our plane’s been hijacked. I hope I can be able to see your face again, baby. I love you! Goodbye!” were lines from the actual 9/11 audio footage at the beginning of the film and from that, I thought that Zero Dark Thirty would be an emotionally-touching action-packed movie. Because of an exciting plot, I expected it to be a thrilling film but it turned out to be despicably monotonous. Set in the bustling streets and the danger-prone areas of the Middle East, the set design became largely influential to the film, and it added to the viewer’s experience. However, if I hadn’t known that the movie was directed by Academy-Award winner, Kathryn Bigelow, I would have thought that this was directed by an unknown director. The chapter-by-chapter time skip actually took the plot away from the movie — it became choppy and incomprehensible.One moment we see Ammar (Reda Kateb) being tortured, and then in the next screen, it’s suddenly two years later. The only commendable action scene in the movie being Osama Bin Laden’s ambush, the plot seemed to drag as we see more conversations and less action than what we expected to see. The movie poster also said that the writer, Mark Boal, is an Academy award-winning screenwriter but it puzzles me how he actually got the information about the happenings when CIA operations are supposed to be undisclosed. Why would the scriptwriter just name-drop sites that were supposedly top-secret, like the existence of Area 51? Thus, the credibility of the events and places seem questionable. Moreover, the flood of names of terrorists in conversations was actually confusing and the discussions about situations in ISI were unnecessary. I wanted to see scenes related to finding Abu Ahmed and ultimately, Bin Laden. I wanted action, not conversations. Though the pacing was unbelievably slow, the cinematography during the bombing in the restaurant Maya and Jennifer were eating at was brilliant.The transition was truly surprising — one moment Jennifer was talking to someone over the phone, and then the next, the restaurant was already in pieces and people were dying. Maya’s expression of pure shock and terror was perfectly captured the camera. The editing of the movie headed by William Goldenberg was realistic, and the bombings were so unpredictable, I was surprised and scared out of my seat. Mostly, the ambush operation in the last 30 minutes of the film was so professionally shot it could pass up as an actual footage. It’s the little moments that make this film alive. After the phone call from Maya’s supervisor, stating that tonight will be the ambush, we witness the bonds of the “canaries” – the way they goofed around and gambled, yet still looked out for each other. Viewers always have the impression that soldiers are brute men who would sacrifice anything and anyone for their purpose, but this scene actually gives the impression that they’re men too who treasure the bonds they have. The only comical relief during the movie was provided by Dan’s sarcasm and personality.Ironically, this attitude always comes up during the supposedly-heartbreaking torture scenes which made it particularly hard for me to sympathize with Ammar (Reda Kateb). Another highlight of his role was when Dan fed the monkeys in a CIA site. I remembered the previous scene when Ammar said that Dan was an animal, and as the monkeys stole the ice cream from Dan, I saw how it was similar to their situation. Dan takes and takes from Ammar, but eventually, Ammar gets the best of him when he doesn’t provide information. As I contemplated about the film after watching it, I think the reason why it seemed so bland and dry is because it lacked the action that viewers are used to see in fictional CIA films. The super cool CIA combat and the shooting scenes where the CIA agent never gets shot weren’t present in the movie. Instead, the movie consisted of CIA operatives who commit mistakes and ultimately get killed, like Jennifer (Jennifer Ehle); we meet heartless CIA agents like Dan (Jason Clarke) who would torture a man endlessly to get the information he needs. We see unsexy Maya, an ordinary-looking woman who wears identical suits every day, who got carried away by emotions after Jennifer’s death and during her confrontation with Joseph Bradley (Kyle Chandler), and who was almost killed once in an attempt at her life.The film was made up of one-dimensional characters who got frustrated when they can’t do anything. I wanted to know the characters more but there was zero character development. There weren’t even any scenes about Maya’s past, like why and how was she recruited out of high school? Did she ever get in touch with Jennifer’s family after her death? This lack of character personality development and the blankness of her facial expressions in most of her screen time made me wonder why Jessica Chastain is praised for her role in Zero Dark Thirty. I’ve recently watched Les Miserables and if Jessica Chastain were to be nominated in the same category as Anne Hathaway for an Oscar, then Chastain could just say that she dreamed a dream of winning an Oscar. I won’t say that she did not deserve her Golden Globe award, but I never thought she’d be nominated for it either. Her portrayal as the angry young Bin Laden-obsessed CIA agent was so stereotypical — she started as the nervous, awkward new CIA operative and then ultimately became the “motherfucker,” as she puts it, who found Bin Laden’s location.Maya always had this expressionless face, as if trying very hard to capture a CIA agent’s demeanor. In fact, I only began to sympathize with Maya upon the death of Jennifer. Her endless pursuit of Bin Laden became more personal from this point, proving that nothing motivates like revenge. I think that the scene where Maya shook her head and then cried actually concludes the plot well because it showed her human side and the drive that has been pushing her all along. She quotes in one scene that her friends got killed because of the hunt and she believes that she has been spared for a reason. This gives justice to her emotions in the end, where she finally breaks down as the realization that she has reached her goal after almost a decade — yet the friends she had made along the way were already gone. She is no longer the new, awkward CIA recruit, rather, Maya has become the CIA operative who resorted to all means possible to take down Osama Bin Laden. With the methods that the movie’s characters practiced, there has been much speculation whether the film is pro-torture or not.The director and the writer of the film presented these “enhanced interrogation techniques” as a part of the pursuit. So for me, it’s not a pro-torture movie but at the same time, it’s not anti-torture either. If Zero Dark Thirty were pro-torture, then the viewers should have seen how Ammar gave information after being tortured, but he did not. Instead we see that the key piece to the puzzle for finding Bin Laden was actually served to Dan and Maya over lunch, not during torture time. And if the movie were anti-torture, then there shouldn’t have been any torture scenes in the movie — leaving Reda Kateb, who played Ammar, with zero talent fee. The film showed that Maya was convinced that the location of Bin Laden’s courier, Abu Ahmed, is crucial to the pursuit not because there was information revealed during the torture sessions, rather, it’s the detainees’ refusal to give up any information about the courier that connects the dots for Maya.Therefore, the film depicts numerous, albeit controversial, practices used in America’s pursuit for Osama Bin Laden. It shows that torturing Jihad-driven detainees or buying a man a Lamborghini as bribery weren’t the ultimate keys for solving the puzzle that led to Bin Laden. No single method can perfectly encapsulate the sum of the efforts of the people behind the manhunt for Bin Laden. The totality of their hard work and passion was what the filmmakers strived to partake, so for me, the movie isn’t raising any notions on being pro or against these methods. Zero Dark Thirty relays the fact that we tread different paths in life with a great number of sacrifices along the way.Though this movie doesn’t live up to its tagline “The Greatest Manhunt in History,” is still a perfect example of humanity’s journey towards his goals. Americans would continue to preserve their seat of power, while the Muslims would continue to do anything to reach Jihad. I wanted to be awed by this film and I wanted to feel the characters’ emotions, but the film gave me neither. The lack of emotion in Zero Dark Thirty makes me think that the budget for this should have been allocated to a film with a different perspective, like a documentary, and not as a film with actors and actresses playing roles they fail to give color to.