The Road to Guantanamo (2006)

Best movie of this year hands down!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Umm..How is this propaganda? It even showed American SOLDIERS WHO ARE RESPECTFUL AT Guantanamo bay (not all soldiers were assholes and treated the prisoners like animals) Secondly, this is based on real-life - The film portrays the accounts of Ruhal Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul (the 'Tipton Three'). This is a very personal story – the story of four pretty ordinary, young Englishmen (of Pakistani background) who were in the were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It puts faces, personalities and stories to the so-called "evil-doers", the "really bad guys", as George W. Bush likes to childishly describe them. In doing so, it exposes the absolutely corrupt lies that we have been fed by our leaders.The four arrived in Pakistan for a wedding, not long after after the events of September 11, 2001. During their visit, they crossed the porous border of Afghanistan. Perhaps it was curiosity, or adventurism (the film doesn't fully explain). Whatever their reasons, the film is ultimately about the inhumanity and injustice that has been meted out while in the custody of US forces.The narrative takes the form of talking heads. Three of the young men (one is missing, presumed dead) speak intermittently as their experiences are re-enacted by non-professional actors in a documentary-like format, based on the accounts of the three. The realism of these segments is gripping, interspersed with Al Jazeera video footage from the time.Trapped in Kunduz province under attack by the Northern Alliance, the three men and other residents scramble onto a truck shared with Taliban fighters evacuating from the town. When this truck is intercepted, the occupants are all taken into custody. Thus begins the arduous road to Guantanamo.In the end, this story is not just about four young men. It is about Mamdouh Habib, David Hicks and a multitude of innocents who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Those without western governments to support them still languish under harsh conditions. It is a travesty that the Australian government is the only western government that continues to abandon its responsibilities to its citizens. As the film depicts, contrary to the rule of law, there is a presumption of guilt.For me, the constant inhumane interrogations, solitary confinements and beatings were reminiscent of the 1692 Salem trials depicted in Arthur Miller's parable The Crucible, or the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings (which inspired Miller's work) so artfully and powerfully depicted in George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck. Ironically, they depict the very type of pernicious activities that the US government was claiming to be saving the world from.In the context of current world events, this is an important film. I suspect that it will mostly preach to the converted, but hopefully it will find a wider audience. I found it compelling.

The main issue I have with this film is that it presents itself as a documentary. It is not a documentary and this is not journalism. It is entertainment. That immediately destroys all credibility in the eyes of those who have an unflinching religious loyalty to whatever national or Christian symbol you want to use.When I sat down to watch this I thought perhaps I would get to see a film that would make even the most die hard American Good Old Boy sit down and really start asking some questions. Unfortunately it is just going to add more fuel to their self righteous fires. Through an hour and a half I saw ONE scene where a member of the United States military acted like a reasonable human being. I mean come on guys. This kind of film is not going to change any minds.If you are honestly concerned with educating people this is not the film to show them.

How in the name of any god, and why would you as a Brit going to a wedding suddenly: go to a war zone to see if you could help and how big the 'naans' are?? That's what I really did not get. Then the story line was very weak in my point of view, every time you thought OK, not we're somewhere, the plot or story just stopped and went somewhere else. For example: they are once questioned why they were in Afhganistan? ... you expect them to answer that they were there for a wedding, but boom the camera turns and takes another view without letting them answer on that question. In the end they answered sometimes; but then it were answers like: 'Bullshit' (litteraly) on the same sort of questioning. Why did they not persevere in that they were unguilty? That made me almost angry... it is a bad thing what happens in Guantanamo, but at the same time it seemed to me as: what happens if you let a American fool interrogate a British fool? Anwering foolish, then you get foolish treatment as well I guess!

Some people pretend motion pictures should do the homework for them. Give them all possible points of views, so they can lazily make a judgment, come to a conclusion, ignoring the multi-fold aspects of all situations. I believe that what makes "The Road to Guantánamo" more interesting than the average movie, is that it dares to show a part of present history that few filmmakers care to tell, with honesty and affection, and without make-ups (special effects first come to mind, but I think mostly of the routine solutions given to human dramas --or comedies-- in most mainstream movies.) True, there may be atrocities done by all parties concerned with political issues, but we are always treated with the same discourses of fight for democracy, liberty, or civil rights, and it's positive to find more filmmakers willing to disclose the ugly faces of the demagogues, and the different dark sides of world affairs. There is definitely not only one point of view to everything, and this drama (I don't think it is a documentary, although it uses techniques of the genre) gives us more information, so we can do our homework with a little bit more of knowledge. As Law states, the ignorance of a rule does not make us innocent if we break it. So even if we are not aware of what happens beyond our frontiers, we still have our quota of responsibility for all world affairs. This said, I must applaud Michael Winterbottom one more time (even though the film is co-directed by Mat Whitecross.) Winterbottom has become one of my favorite contemporary filmmakers, and surprised me film after film, and none of the ones I have seen have disappointed me. Perhaps the one that I liked less was "24 Hour Party People", but even this one was good. "The Road to Guantánamo" is in the same line of another of his remarkable films, called "In This World", dealing with a boy from Afghanistan who crosses Europe to get to England. These works are far from other Winterbottom works, all fine in my opinion: the romantic science-fiction "Code 46", the proletarian dramatic comedy "Wonderland", or the costume dramas "The Claim" and "Jude." Now I want to see more!