ON THE ROAD

The Road to Guantanamo 

Directed by Michael Winterbottom & Mat Whitecross 

The Taliban (remember them?) gets rehabilitated in The Road to Guantanamo, a pseudo-documentary by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross, that contributes to the demonization of American foreign policy. Actors portray the British-Pakistani young men known as the Tipton Three who were illegally traveling in Afghanistan when the 9/11 terrorist attack took place. The Tipton Three were arrested by the Northern Alliance and imprisoned at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo. (After being released they filed suit in the Supreme Court.) This whacked-out piece of anti-American propaganda, pretending Human Rights rhetoric, is a Weapon of Crass misInstruction. Using the Tipton Three's smugness to discredit the Bush administration, the film condemns the U.S. military for treating al-Qaeda suspects worse than the Taliban brutalized the Mideast. 

It's all reality-TV-style fakery from the bogus talking heads interviews to the handheld digital camera "capturing" bombing raids and massacres. The Taliban slaughters are confused with U.S. military intervention. The Tipton Three remain arrogantly defiant throughout. Their political nonchalance and insolence in the face of alleged torture and head-shaving come right out of V for Vendetta.

Look how the Left media rouses itself, substituting factual detail with manipulative music, shakey-cam cliches and contrived spontaneity. It's reminiscent of Winterbot-tom's In This World, which crudely imitated the multilevel realism of recent Iranian films just to win Western political sentiment. His opening shot of President Bush exchanging looks with Prime Minister Blair is the ideological equivalent of throwing darts. Only gullible viewers would believe Winterbot-tom's lies (drama) or enjoy his seeming lack of interest in the suffering of non-British detainees and his indifference to American self-protection. This is Winterbottom's sixth film in four years. His so-called virtuosity is easy since it's all prevarication. If he's come down to pardoning the Taliban regime just for narrative fodder, then it's time he folded up his digicam.