This little review is a little late since the movie came out last year (haha New Year's joke), but it's never too late to share your opinion.
Before going into the theater, I sat down at the burger joint nearby and enjoyed a delectable bison burger while contemplating what I was about to see on the big screen. I expected horrible torture scenes since the movie is about a journalist imprisoned in Iran back in 2009. I braced myself for the worst and then trotted in with a group of friends, all excited for the motion picture.
From a cinematic perspective without factoring in the book, the movie was great. For a directorial debut, Jon Stewart did an excellent job with transition, motion, and action. The live footage from the presidential elections of Iran in 2009 was added into the movie beautifully! The movie was not hard to follow, but not nearly as violent as I thought it would be. Those horrible scenes I was expecting were implied, and not overdone. However, while it was tasteful, it also sugar-coated the entire story. By the time it was over, I was convinced of the power of social media, entranced by the educated of Tehran, Iran, and swept away by the violence and despotism of a modern day country.
The film steered me towards the book, eager to read what I thought would be a written guide to help the viewer understand some of the difficult Middle Eastern names and make sense of the players on the complicated board of Iranian politics. What I found was something else entirely... a lot of the film had changed the original story, much more than I thought it would have.
As I read through the chapters, I realized you were not really in Maziar Bahari's head while watching the film. The movie barely touched on the man's story and what he saw in Iran in the days leading up to his arrest. He witnessed families beaten by the police, old women attacked and left to suffer, and the younger generation of his country rising up to fight the injustice. The movie barely covered the Iranian government's choke-hold on the people and their paranoia of Western civilization and its media, and its absolute desperation to hide its true colors and keep the legitimacy that allowed them power.
I had expected sugar-coated torture scenes, but not almost everything left out entirely. Maziar suffered psychological torture the movie showed the audience, but did not go into depth about. Not only that, but the sorrow of Maziar's family in the film felt much different than the sister, mother, and father I met on the pages. His father and sister suffered so much at the hands of the Iranian regimes they faced in their times and none of it was given justice in that movie theater.
The movie was moving and touching for those without the book, but as my tears soaked the pages of Maziar's memoirs, I realized the movie was for Americans who can't handle the truth. The movie delivered its message and fulfilled its purpose of making aware the problem of Western media journalists facing imprisonment and torture in countries like Iran, but it did not necessarily put to the screen the story of a brave journalist who was punished for doing his job. There was not enough detail for me, not enough of what I found in the thoughts Maziar decided to share in his book.
Please do not think I am bashing the movie. It was a great experience and an incredibly difficult true story to bring to life for the big screen. Jon Stewart did well with the task he assigned himself. I hope he does more in his career and creates more films based on the current events we face today. He does a fantastic job of making the news easier to watch and shares a point of view more of my generation should pay attention to. Thank you, Jon Stewart, but I really did prefer the book.
I recommend both the movie and book! Thoughts? Comments? Questions?
Before going into the theater, I sat down at the burger joint nearby and enjoyed a delectable bison burger while contemplating what I was about to see on the big screen. I expected horrible torture scenes since the movie is about a journalist imprisoned in Iran back in 2009. I braced myself for the worst and then trotted in with a group of friends, all excited for the motion picture.
From a cinematic perspective without factoring in the book, the movie was great. For a directorial debut, Jon Stewart did an excellent job with transition, motion, and action. The live footage from the presidential elections of Iran in 2009 was added into the movie beautifully! The movie was not hard to follow, but not nearly as violent as I thought it would be. Those horrible scenes I was expecting were implied, and not overdone. However, while it was tasteful, it also sugar-coated the entire story. By the time it was over, I was convinced of the power of social media, entranced by the educated of Tehran, Iran, and swept away by the violence and despotism of a modern day country.
The film steered me towards the book, eager to read what I thought would be a written guide to help the viewer understand some of the difficult Middle Eastern names and make sense of the players on the complicated board of Iranian politics. What I found was something else entirely... a lot of the film had changed the original story, much more than I thought it would have.
As I read through the chapters, I realized you were not really in Maziar Bahari's head while watching the film. The movie barely touched on the man's story and what he saw in Iran in the days leading up to his arrest. He witnessed families beaten by the police, old women attacked and left to suffer, and the younger generation of his country rising up to fight the injustice. The movie barely covered the Iranian government's choke-hold on the people and their paranoia of Western civilization and its media, and its absolute desperation to hide its true colors and keep the legitimacy that allowed them power.
I had expected sugar-coated torture scenes, but not almost everything left out entirely. Maziar suffered psychological torture the movie showed the audience, but did not go into depth about. Not only that, but the sorrow of Maziar's family in the film felt much different than the sister, mother, and father I met on the pages. His father and sister suffered so much at the hands of the Iranian regimes they faced in their times and none of it was given justice in that movie theater.
The movie was moving and touching for those without the book, but as my tears soaked the pages of Maziar's memoirs, I realized the movie was for Americans who can't handle the truth. The movie delivered its message and fulfilled its purpose of making aware the problem of Western media journalists facing imprisonment and torture in countries like Iran, but it did not necessarily put to the screen the story of a brave journalist who was punished for doing his job. There was not enough detail for me, not enough of what I found in the thoughts Maziar decided to share in his book.
Please do not think I am bashing the movie. It was a great experience and an incredibly difficult true story to bring to life for the big screen. Jon Stewart did well with the task he assigned himself. I hope he does more in his career and creates more films based on the current events we face today. He does a fantastic job of making the news easier to watch and shares a point of view more of my generation should pay attention to. Thank you, Jon Stewart, but I really did prefer the book.
I recommend both the movie and book! Thoughts? Comments? Questions?