By Paul Byrnes
The Mauritanian ★★★★
MA 15+, 129 minutes, Amazon Prime from March 24
Emeric Pressburger was a prominent screenwriter in Berlin the 1920s. He fled to London in the 1930s, when the Nazis came hunting for Jews. His grandson, Kevin Macdonald has become one of the most versatile writer/directors in British cinema, with films like Touching the Void, The Last King of Scotland and State of Play.
Tahar Rahim as Mohamedou Ould Salahi and Jodie Foster as Nancy Hollander in The Mauritanian. Credit: Amazon Prime Video
Pressburger and Michael Powell made some of the greatest films in the British canon: A Matter of Life and Death, Colonel Blimp, The Red Shoes. I suspect that some of Macdonald’s humanism comes from his grandfather, who was the subject of his first film.
Macdonald loves a ripping yarn but he’s in that upright tradition that still believes in truth, justice and the British way - not to mention the power of political film. That explains The Mauritanian, a film that should have been made by an American, but wasn’t.
That’s because it accuses the American government, through the Bush and Obama administrations, of betraying their Constitution and system of justice.
Tahar Rahim stars as Mohamedou Ould Salahi.Credit: Amazon Prime Video
None of it is news if you read the papers, but many no longer do, so movies continue to play a role in taking off the blinkers. And this one does it well.
It’s a cracking political thriller, making the case that America has lost its moral leadership and its compass since 9/11.
Mohamedou Salahi (French actor Tahar Rahim) is at a family wedding in the Mauritanian desert when the local police come: the Americans want to talk to him. It is two months after the attacks on the World Trade Centre.
Soon he is in Guantanamo Bay, having been chained, beaten, drugged and dragged through rendition stops in Jordan and Afghanistan. His interrogation begins with two friendly men from the US government.
At the same time, in Albuquerque, human rights lawyer Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) hears that Salahi’s whereabouts are unknown. German television reports that he may be in Gitmo. Hollander takes up his cause, pro-bono, with young lawyer Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley) to assist.
Foster is silver-haired, with an intimidating shade of puce lipstick - brittle and steely, as always. She takes no prisoners on her first visit to the place that has many: “Who authorised my client’s chains?” she asks. “I want to get the name right for The New York Times.“
Back in the US, Benedict Cumberbatch, with an unlikely southern drawl, meets some old military friends. The higher-ups want Lieutenant-Colonel Couch (Cumberbatch), to prosecute Salahi. They want it done quick and dirty, straight to the death penalty.
If the story of Salahi’s imprisonment for 14 years without charge were not true, corroborated by multiple sources, the script might be accused of black-hatting the US army.
Some of the characters are paper-thin ciphers for meanness. Couch, on the other hand, is as serious about the law as his rival, Nancy Hollander. Both soon realise they are being kept in the dark.
Hollander files a writ of habeas corpus. Her case is not about the man’s guilt, but whether the government has a right to imprison him without trial, based on the legal dodge that Gitmo is not on US territory.
It’s clear that Macdonald and the writers think Salahi is innocent, but they show enough of the allegations against him that we understand why his tormentors see it differently.
In the end, it is a film about human, not just American rights: the right not to be tortured, the right to a presumption of innocence, the right to have charges brought and to defend them without duress.
Mamedou Salahi was afforded none of these rights. His treatment shamed the land of the free - and there are others still imprisoned at Guantanamo, despite Obama’s pledge to close it.
Even if you disagree with these sentiments, the film’s accusations are difficult to simply ignore.
Tahar Rahim, as Mohamedou Salahi, gives a performance as haunting as any in the great American prison dramas admired around the world: Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, Tim Robbins in Shawshank Redemption, Steve McQueen in Papillon.
But in those films, the black-hats were the jailers. The Mauritanian calls the American system to account. Stand back: the system will retaliate.
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