Director: Jon Stewart

Starring: Gael García Bernal, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Golshifteh Farahani, Dimitri Leonidas

Running Time: 103 Minutes

Synopsis: A journalist is detained in Iran for more than 100 days and brutally interrogated in prison.

‘Im really happy I’m not dead – usually these films are about dead people.’ These were the opening words spoken by journalist Maziar Bahari as he settled in with director Jon Stewart to discuss the film ROSEWATER – a film they insist is inspired by (not based on) his own experiences imprisoned in Iran. Bahari took part in a skit – or ‘humorous essay’ as Stewart would rather call it – for The Daily Show which saw the journalist assume the identity of a terrorist. That, along with some scenes he filmed of unrest, got the journalist arrested and put in solitary confinement.

‘There is a Kafka-esque reality to these regimes,’ Stewart said. ‘They bring people and they isolate them for no real reason and in the absence of reason they weaponize idiocy.’

This lack of reason, as Stewart describes it, is clearly evident in ROSEWATER, a film as ridiculous as it is shocking. Bahari’s interrogator in the film uses the skit as evidence, refers to things Bahari has ‘liked’ on Facebook as apparent proof that he is a spy, gets angry with him for turning down a coffee. It seems just too far-fetched to be an actual interrogation and there is a bizarre urge to laugh. Yet, Bahari insists that there is a lot of truth in what takes place in the film. Of course, at the time, there was little for Bahari to laugh about but he says that with hindsight he can see the humour.

Though the imprisonment section of the film does not actually take place until well into the feature, when it does it is handled in a very strange manner, using humour – much like The Daily Show – to highlight the ignorance of Bahari’s captors and absurdity of the whole situation.

Though it was evident in the Q&A that followed the screening that this was done consciously, it somehow cheapens the severity of what Bahari was going through. This is not ‘torture porn’, Stewart explained, but that doesn’t mean we need to laugh quite as much as the film seems to want us to. Viewers are not watching it with hindsight, we are experiencing it all for the first time.

Despite the strange use of humour, there is a very clear shift in colour when Bahari is imprisoned and we do not see what is happening outside for a long time. There are some moments of heart-stopping emotion and fear during Bahari’s time in confinement that are so unexpected after the lighter moments that they carry huge weight. ‘When they remove his freedom I wanted the audience to feel that loss,’ Stewart explained. ‘Structurally, I didn’t leave the prison . . . I wanted the audience to forget about the outside world so that when it’s revealed to Maziar, it’s revealed to the audience and you feel that rush and that relief.’

Maziar Bahari and Jon Stewart

Despite its context, ROSEWATER is not a film solely about imprisonment. Bahari said that it’s more about ‘what sustains you’ and it’s easy to see this in the film, with all the references to family and music. ‘This film is not really about me,’ he added. Though he acknowledges that the film is inspired by his experiences, there has been a conscious effort to make this a universal story that is not specific to one regime in one country.

‘What Jon wanted to do in the film was to tell the universal truth rather than go for the reality,’ Bahari said. ‘We could never achieve the reality. Even if we filmed in Iran, it would not be real . . . we could not recreate those moments.’

Journalists, bloggers and activists are being imprisoned for simply baring witness to something and they don’t have the international pressure Bahari’s friends and family were able to utilize to secure his release.

So how does Bahari feel about seeing his experiences turned into a film? ‘As journalists we tend to put a distance between ourselves and our subjects,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I can look at the film with a journalistic eye and not be affected by it but other times, especially for the family scenes, it’s very difficult and emotional to watch.’

Despite its hiccups, Stewart has directed an astonishing debut. ROSEWATER is such an important piece of cinema for this generation because, when stripped back, it promotes and encourages debate about the world in which we live, the importance of our own voice and those who govern us – something of which I believe Stewart and Bahari would be immensely proud.

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