Jodie Foster isn’t one for political movies or biopics, and yet somehow the actor and filmmaker found herself smack in the middle of a movie that’s both.
That film is The Mauritanian, a political drama based on the memoirs of Mohamedou Salahi, a man who was detailed at Guantanamo Bay without charge for 14 years before he was released in October 2016.
Foster plays his lawyer, Nancy Hollander, while French actor Tahar Rahim portrays Salahi, alongside a cast that also includes Benedict Cumberbatch, Shailene Woodley and Zachery Levi.
The double Oscar-winning Foster has been in the industry for more than five decades, with lauded roles in Taxi Driver, The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs. She has a dignity that carries across from her performances to her rare public appearances.
With that long and respected career, it’s no wonder Foster is able to really pick and choose her projects. She’s a discerning actor who has performed in only six other films since 2010, but Salahi’s story met the criteria she has for choosing a project, so much so that it also allayed any reticence about political biopics.
“[To say yes to a project] it has to move me, and it’d have to feel like it’s meaningful and I need to get obsessed by it,” she tells news.com.au over zoom. “I think the thing that touched me the most really was Mohamedou’s story. I wanted to make sure that his story was central and that I could be there to support his story.
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“I don’t really love political films and I don’t really love biopics because I feel like structurally, they’re sometimes very not well-written. Somebody is born and then they do something great and then they meet famous people and then they die.
“That’s usually the structure of a biopic. I’ve been careful not to make a lot of political movies unless I felt like the text and the story script rose to a level where it can really make a difference for people.
“I feel like because we enter the film through Mohamedou’s experience, it had that possibility.”
That “difference” in The Mauritanian is to shine another light on the gross abuses committed under the veil of “justice” at Guantanamo Bay through the personal experiences of Salahi, detained in 2001 over phone logs that suggested an Al Qaeda connection.
Ruthlessly tortured into confessing – a tactic proven to be ineffective in extracting genuine confessions and information – Salahi’s story is part of the dark stain in the American response to the 9/11 attacks.
Elements of the report into CIA’s torture program at Guantanamo was revealed in 2014 (dramatised in Annette Bening and Adam Driver film The Report), but in the years since its revelations, Guantanamo Bay is still operating.
Barack Obama signalled his intention to close the camp as early as 2008 but it wasn’t until the end of his presidential term that there were concrete plans, which was reversed by Donald Trump in 2018. Since coming to office, Joe Biden has vowed to shut it down.
There are still 40 prisoners held at Guantanamo, without charge.
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Foster hopes The Mauritanian can contribute to the movement to close Guantanamo.
“Cinema is the most affecting tool we have to change hearts and change minds,” Foster says. “That’s always been true because the audience is able to work in a way that isn’t entirely intellectual and be able to drop into character and be able to accept people as human, to have that human experience.
“That’s the power of movies.
“That’s what we hope for in the film. The first order of business would be to get Guantanamo to close down. It’s a symbol of lawlessness and it’s a symbol of our failings as a nation, that we created this kind of garrison state, a kangaroo court that could operate outside of American law so we could do unlawful things.
“That’s a dark part of our history. But sometimes it takes that time. Sometimes it takes 20 years in order to go back and really look at something in a way that has the sort of objectivity and subjectivity that audiences will accept.
“Whether it’s looking back at the Jim Crow era or looking back at the Trail of Tears or Japanese internment camps, we periodically have to revisit our mistakes and have a process of truth and reconciliation in order for us to move forward. Or we’re just going to keep doing it over and over again.”
Foster admits that she knew little about the intricacies of the goings-on at Guantanamo or Salahi’s case until she read the script. But she was “blown away” by the story.
At the end of The Mauritanian, the filmmakers splice in video footage of the real Salahi. For a man who had been tortured, denied due process and separated from his family for more than a decade, he seems hopeful and light. Guantanamo didn’t break him.
“That’s the real Mohamedou,” Foster says. “He is loving, forgiving, affectionate, funny, joyful, light-spirited and faithful. That is so surprising that they couldn’t break him of his humanity.
“In fact, they just made his humanity stronger. That’s the real story in the movie. That’s the real testament that this movie brings.
“I think there’s something wonderful about it, for him to know that there are people out there that have heard his story and that they’ve experience somewhat what he’s experienced and believe in him.”
The Mauritanian is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video on Wednesday, March 24
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2021-03-22 06:39:40Z
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