"Zero Dark Thirty": Riveting and Provocative

From the East Room of the White House on May 2, 2011, President Obama announced to the nation that Osama bin Laden, “a terrorist who is responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children,” was dead. Since the 9/11 attacks, the President said, “bin Laden had avoided capture and escaped across the Afghan border into Pakistan. Meanwhile, al Qaeda continued to operate from along that border and operate through its affiliates across the world ... Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.”

But what is the real story behind one of the largest manhunts in history? Kathryn Bigelow, who won the Best Director Oscar in 2010 for her Iraq War-based “The Hurt Locker,” has done an even more impressive job with “Zero Dark Thirty.” It is a bona fide thriller about locating and killing bin Laden, almost 10 years after the United States had declared him public enemy number one.

This riveting movie has also garnered its share of controversy. Three senators - Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) - wrote an open letter to "express our deep disappointment with 'Zero Dark Thirty.' We believe the film is grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location of Osama Bin Laden."

The torture scenes that include repeated beatings and waterboarding of an Al-Qaida operative named “Ammar” (a fictional amalgam, played by Reda Kateb) who refuses to give up the identity of “Abu Ahmed Al-Kuwaiti,” thought to be bin Laden’s confidante, are harrowing, but the movie makes neither the case for nor against torture. It only depicts what took place. Are we really surprised to learn that the CIA engages in torture to extract information from detainees? If so, perhaps we live in an Utopia after all!

Most of the action take place in Pakistan and Afghanistan, after a young CIA recruit, a female no less, joins the US embassy in Islamabad. Code-named “Maya” and played by Jessica Chastain, she is a tenacious, hard-working intelligence officer who follows her hunches that pit her against practically everyone in a world of secrecy thick with male chauvinism. Maya is convinced that the man who drives a white SUV in the crowded marketplaces and whose phone signals have been picked up by informants is the key to locating bin Laden. She has several showdowns with her superiors who dismiss her hunches as worthless but who back down after she threatens to raise hell in Washington about their incompetence.

It is indeed this elusive courier Abu Ahmed Al-Kuwaiti who eventually leads Maya and her Pakistani helpers to a compound in Abbottabad in which bin Laden is holed up. The scenes and the actions are stunning - a shopkeeper here, a taxi driver there confirming the movement of the SUV as it navigates its way toward its destination via serpentine alleys and mountainous highways. The truth, or at least what can be captured within the constraints of a visual medium, gives the movie a feral edge that is beyond the reach of any fiction.

Thirty minutes after midnight (hence the name, Zero Dark Thirty) on May 2, 2011, four helicopters bearing the Seal Team 6 squad take off from Jalalabad, Afghanistan for Abbottabad, Pakistan, a distance of about 160 miles. The mission: Kill Osama bin Laden and bring back his dead body. The Black Hawks fly through the fabled Khyber Pass, night vision painting the darkness a feverish green. What happened at the compound is known to practically everyone but still, the reenactment of the raid is so extraordinarily vivid that the viewer gasps at the rendering.

Zero Dark Thirty is a cinematographic tour de force. I found Jessica Chastain’s performance (nominated for Best Actress Oscar) adequate but nowhere near as compelling as Angelina Jolie was in the 2007 movie, A Mighty Heart. Although the movie has been nominated for four other Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, conspicuous by her absence is Kathryn Bigelow as Best Director. There is speculation that she is the victim of politics. The letter penned by the three senators (claiming that the U.S. does not use torture to get information from suspects while the movie suggests that it does) probably played a role.

Perhaps the senators should be reminded of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. If that will not jog their memories, how about (as columnist Tom Engelhardt points out in the Los Angeles Times on 1/11/13) “the secret kidnapping of a Muslim cleric off the streets of Milan in 2003 and his handoff to Egyptian torturers,” or the case of “Khaled El-Masri, an unemployed car salesman from Germany on vacation in Macedonia, who, on New year’s Eve 2003, was pulled off a bus and kidnapped by the CIA because his name was similar to that of an Al-Qaida suspect. After spending five months under brutal conditions, in part in an "Afghan" prison called "the Salt Pit" run by the CIA, he was left at the side of a road in Albania. In between, his life was a catalog of horrors, torture and abuse.”

The senators should perhaps carefully see the movie at least one more time. Perhaps then they will understand what the CIA agent named Dan (Jason Clarke), subjecting Ammar to “enhanced interrogation” in Zero Dark Thirty, means, when he says: “In the end everybody breaks. It’s biology.”

 

An Iranian Masterpiece

If you are looking for a breather from the daily grinds of life and want to lose yourself in a light fare of romance and laughter, steer clear of this movie. But if you want to witness an unflinching look at life in all its pathos and ambiguities, in which faith, loyalty, family values, traditional culture and class distinctions clash in a draining suspense worthy of both Hitchcock and John le Carre, then go see the Iranian masterpiece called “A Separation.”

Director Asghar Farhadi’s movie should win the Best Foreign Language Oscar this year. If not, we can conclude that something is seriously wrong with the Academy. The film has gained worldwide acclaim since its release in 2011 and has been racking up awards at film festivals, most recently the Golden Globe.

But award or no award, this is a superbly-crafted film that deals intelligently and unsparingly with the big questions of life. It pulls no punches. We are gripped by the emotional conflicts of the actors because we realize with a shock that these are our conflicts as well, in one form or another.

Nader (Peyman Maadi) is resisting divorce from his wife Simin (Leila Hatami) because she wants to migrate to a foreign land and he does not. He cannot bear the thought of abandoning his Alzheimer-stricken father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi). The custody of the couple’s 11-year old daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi, the director’s daughter) is the bone of contention. It is unresolved at this point but Termeh decides to stay with her father when her mother moves in with her parents.

Nader has to find a caretaker for his headstrong but helpless father in a hurry. At his wife’s urging, he hires Razieh (Sareh Bayat), a chador-clad religious working-class woman. Razieh has problems of her own. She has to care for a young daughter. She has a psychopathic husband, Hodjat (Shahab Hosseini, to deal with. She has to travel a considerable distance by bus to reach Nader’s apartment, a perilous daily undertaking considering that she is pregnant (not known to the protagonists at the outset). She has to lie to her husband about the job because he would not approve of her caring for another man, even if he is over 80. But most of all, looking after an incontinent man turns out to be a nightmare, especially since Nader’s father has a habit of wandering off from the apartment when she is mopping floors or preparing food.

In this combustible mix, things can explode for any number of social, cultural or religious reasons, and they all do. Nader comes home one day in the very first week to find his father unconscious, his hands tied to the bed. Razieh is nowhere to be found. When she does show up, bedlam ensues. A crime of some kind is committed, although we are not sure who actually committed it. Nader finds himself in a court battle with Razieh and her husband, and soon his wife, daughter and neighbors are dragged into it as well. The autocratic and impassive judge infuriates both parties as he oscillates between indifference and high-handedness.

The key event on which the entire movie pivots is never shown, even in flashback. This is Asghar Farhadi’s masterstroke. By visually withholding what really happened (it is only revealed in a few words near the climax), he heightens the tension and achieves a shattering effect. I will not be giving away anything if I paraphrase what Nader says to Razieh as the two families are on the brink of working out a settlement: “Can you swear by the Quran that I am responsible for what happened to you?”

Razieh is unable to do so because, as a believer, she feels that if she lies and commits a sin, it will cast a shadow on her daughter.

A happy ending thus slips away. And when Termeh has to finally decide before a judge who she wants to live with – mom or dad – we see the parents waiting outside in the corridor, separated by a glass door, lost in their private agonies. The ending seems incomplete, similar to the ending in that famous 1882 short story by Frank Stockton called “The Lady, or the Tiger?” But in leaving us with a question, director Farhjadi has in reality made his movie complete, for in the moral universe that we inhabit, heartbreak occurs not from having to choose between right and wrong but between two equally compelling rights.

Oscar Math for Best Picture

A course I am teaching – Mathematics for General Education – at a college in Northern California deals with various voting methods. The students are as excited as any movie buff about the 82nd Annual Academy Awards this year (3/7/2010) but they have an additional reason: they are curious to see how the new voting system for Best Picture plays out. They have been learning about the Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) method in my class.

The number of pictures that could nominated for the Best Picture award, from 1946 until last year, was 5. This year the number has been increased to 10 (Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man, Up and Up in the Air.)

Suppose there are 100 voters to pick a winner. If Up in the Air were to win 51 votes, the contest would be over because it had won a majority of the votes. This is as straightforward as it can get. However, it is rare that in a field of 10, one picture will get a majority of votes in the first round.

Let’s consider a more complicated (some would say, pathological) case. Suppose Up in the Air won 11 votes, eight other pictures won 10 votes each and the remaining picture won 9 votes. According to the old system, Up in the Air would still win because it had the most first-place votes (plurality, as opposed to majority), even though it did not reflect the choice of a whopping 89 voters!

How can a picture rejected by 89% of the voters still win the Oscar? It is precisely to remedy such situations that the IRV method is being used. It is fairer than the Plurality method it is replacing and isn’t that complicated either.

In IRV, voters identify not only their first choice, but second, third and fourth choices, all the way down to tenth in this year’s Best Picture category. In other words, a voter whose first choice is Avatar may identify The Hurt Locker as her second choice, Up in the Air the third, An Education the fourth, and so on. (There are around fifty-eight hundred Academy members who will cast their votes for Best Picture among the nominated 10.)

For simplicity, consider 4 pictures and only two choices to illustrate how IRV method works. Suppose this is how the 100 votes are cast:

Number of voters	33	26	23	18
1st choice	Avatar	Hurt Locker	The Blind Side	Up
2nd choice	Up in the Air	District 9	Avatar	Hurt Locker

None of the pictures won a majority of votes. Since Up has the fewest first-place votes in this example, it gets bumped from the list. The second-place Hurt Locker moves up and takes over its 18 votes. The table now looks like this:

Number of voters	33	26+18 = 44	23
1st choice	Avatar	Hurt Locker	The Blind Side
2nd choice	Up in the Air	District 9	Avatar

But Hurt Locker isn’t the winner yet because still there is no majority (at least 51 in this case). In the second round, eliminate The Blind Side because now it has the fewest first-place votes. Avatar moves up and grabs its 23 votes. The table now looks like this:

Number of voters	33 +23 = 56	26+18 = 44
1st choice	Avatar	Hurt Locker
2nd choice	Up in the Air	District 9

Now there’s a majority winner (56 out of 100) and it’s Avatar!

So how did the students cast their “votes” for The Best Picture? Of the 40 students, one chose District 9 as his first choice, another chose The Hurt Locker and the rest, all 38 of them, chose Avatar!

If Community College math students had their say, it would appear that Avatar would win by an overwhelming majority in the very first round. If only life were that simple!

Bollywood Conquers Hollywood, and More

Watching the 81st Annual Academy Awards, I had the surreal feeling that I was actually watching a Bollywood production. Forty-three-year old Musical prodigy and composer Alla Rakha (A. R.) Rahman took two Oscars for best original score and best original song - Jai Ho - in Slumdog Millionaire. When the Kodak Theater resonated to Rahman’s song and the fluid movement of Indian dancers, you knew that Bollywood had taken Hollywood by storm. Yes, yes, I know that the director and producer of Slumdog are Englishmen, but it’s a quintessential Indian tale of hope and love and redemption, and it is Rahman’s score and song that propels the story.

This modest man of enormous talent also stole the show when he said in his acceptance speech: "All my life I've had a choice of hate and love. I chose love and I'm here. God bless." What a stirring message to a troubled world!

Rahman was born in 1966 to a Hindu family but at the age of 21 converted to Sufism, a mystical form of Islam. He described his conversion as "a long process. I was really intrigued by the Sufi thing and had gone very deeply into it, putting aside three hours every day to learn Arabic. I was drawn to Sufism because they have no regulation, no rules, no distinction between Hindu and Muslim."

Before Rahman, only two other Indians had won Oscars: costume designer Bhanu Athaiya for Gandhi in 1982 and master filmmaker Satyajit Ray for lifetime achievement in 1992.

I saw Slumdog when it opened in theatres in San Jose, California, on November 26 last year. On that very day, Mumbai was attacked by Muslim terrorists and the bustling metropolis was gripped by fear and despair. But as the dust settled, the city reasserted itself with quiet resolve and dignity. Most heart-warming was the response by the Muslims of Mumbai. Thousands of them - men, women and children – took to the streets to denounce the terrorists. "We disown and denounce all those who kill in the name of jihad. Terrorists are fascists and enemies of Muslims as Islam doesn't preach killing of innocents," said poet-lyricist Javed Akhtar.

As of today, bodies of nine Pakistani Muslim terrorists lie in a Mumbai hospital morgue because the Indian Muslim community has refused to bury them in its cemetery.

I welcomed Slumdog’s eight Oscars with gratitude to its creators. That its Muslim music director won two Oscars signified for me, in some undefinable way, the victory of moderates over extremists, of sanity over insanity.

Tonight, when parties are being held all over Oscar’s host city, the city being toasted around the world for its moxie is not Los Angeles but Mumbai.

P.S. A day after A.R. Rahman won Oscars for his song and score, Interscope's A&M Records released a pop version of his winning song "Jai Ho (You Are My Destiny)" in English, sung by Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls. It was produced by Ron Fair, chairman of Interscope's Records division. Fair will fly to Chennai (Rahman's hometown) this summer to collaborate with the composer. "He is one of the world's great living composers in any medium," said Fair. "If I could have a little bit of time with A.R. Rahman, it would be like a master class."

Brad Pitt Deserves the Best Actor Oscar

Brad Pitt is the most underrated actor in the world, and he has only his looks to blame. After all, how can someone known to millions of movie fans for his, well, face, excel in acting? But that’s what he does, in movies after movies (Babel, to name just one), and yet the Academy of Motion Pictures looks the other way when Pitt delivers. It’s the same reason why Tom Cruise was denied the “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” Oscar in 2000 for for his performance in Magnolia. Cruise displayed skills far more subtle and poignant than Michael Caine in The Cider House Rules, yet it was the veteran actor who won. Caine was honest about his award: "I'm a survivor, that's what they gave it to me for."

But this year, Pitt has been nominated for the Best Actor award for his role in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. (In 1995, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Twelve Monkeys but the Oscar went rightly to Kevin Spacey for his performance in The Usual Suspects). And the odds are against him this year too for getting the nod from the high priests of the Academy. The favorite to win is Mickey Rourke for his gritty performance in The Wrestler.

The case for Rourke is compelling. First, his acting in Wrestler was brilliant, no question about it. Second, the story also reflects Rourke’s personal odyssey, a gifted actor with self-destructive tendencies who almost lost it but managed to stage a stirring comeback. Who cannot identify with that? Who can resist such redemption?

Yet, if we separate the personal from the public, we have to conclude that Pitt’s performance in Button is superior to Rourke’s in Wrestler. Pitt’s material, based on the short story by Scott Fitzgerald about a man who ages backwards, is more difficult. Very few actors could have pulled it off without reducing the role to a caricature. Whether it is feeling the first pangs of love, fidelity or loss, or roaming Siddharta-like in India to find himself, or staring kismet in the face, or coming to terms with life's cruelty and grace, Pitt transcends acting and transports us to a wondrous realm. For the first time, I realized in my guts what “willing suspension of disbelief” meant watching Pitt portray his magic on the screen.

I hope Brad Pitt wins the Best Actor Oscar this year. If that happens, years from now, we will fondly remember the 81st Annual Academy Awards for its own rare performance of justice.