Everyone has something to say when politics are brought up, and unlike most topics, generally everyone thinks they know what they’re talking about. Most of these conversations generally either lead to condescension or two people agreeing too much, making the conversation way too self-serving and useless. These attitudes and obsessions unfortunately bleed over into the movies, with pop-documentarians like Michael Moore reaping big bucks at the box-office. The general public is left with mediocre documentaries that only appeal to one side of the argument. Those looking for something subtle are usually left in the dust. That is, until, director Laura Poitras unleashed “The Oath.”
The film follows two characters, brother-in-laws Abu Jandal and Salim Hamdan. Abu Jandal is the former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden; he now drives a taxi in Yemen and carries much of the film. Salim Hamdan was hired as a driver for bin Laden, he was caught and detained at Guantanamo Bay and has been awaiting trial for years. A question should immediately pop up – why the hell is a driver detained and tortured for information and not the bodyguard? It’s no secret, Jandal appears on various TV shows for interviews and readily admits that was bin Laden’s bodyguard for years. This is one of the main concerns of the film, which stays on our mind as the film reveals more about Jandal’s life and goes further into the court case of Hamdan.
Director Poitras (the excellent “My Country, My Country” which serves as the beginning to her post-9/11 trilogy) shapes her film much like how one would assume this would play out in reality, even though we got quite the opposite. The film focuses on Jandal while we also follow Hamdan as his case in presented in court and his lawyers present his defense.The entire structure of the film is a case against America’s policy with terrorists, one that is guaranteed to strike someone no matter which way they lean.
As we find out more about Jandal, he turns out to be just as troubled and confused as any individual, both scared and proud of what he used to be a part of. An early scene has Jandal in a meeting with a few youths, one asks why the WTC was attacked. The following conversation, which is spoken so mildly and a-matter-of-factly, is frightening. Later, Jandal interivews with the director and says that he does not agree with bombing and killing all of those innocents, and then later tells them to delete it. The film does not treat him as evil, even though some of what he says is rather blunt and unnerving. He is shown to be a very complicated individual. While being very against Western influence, he allows his son to watch “Tom and Jerry” and at one point tells him to buy a British drink. When called out on it by a youth, Jandal claims wit ha smirk that the Yemeni drinks “taste awful” and that he “cannot help it.” While any other director would’ve probably highlighted these moments, Poitras allows them to happen without any outside influence. She shows that they are not annoyingly hypocritical but, in fact, human.
The oath that the title refers to is the oath Jandal takes when accepting his job with bin Laden, in which he swears that nothing is more important than his job and dedication to his cause, not his family or even his own self. Throughout the film Jandal will not answer whether or not his oath is still valid, though the abandoning of his job seems to prove otherwise. When referencing the FBI interrogation of Jandal, the main interrogator takes the stand against water-boarding and the like, claiming that they received loads of useful information in a shorter time and more of it because they treated their prisoner with respect and dignity. The speaker, behind a curtain, claims that he is not anti-government because of his distaste with their policy, but merely following his oath as an American citizen, part of in which everyone should be guaranteed a fair trial. This is another interesting parallel that Poitras presents but doesn’t push, one that serves better being placed in front of the audience rather than shown in a cutesy animation of some sort.
There are many other complicated instances in this film, ones that force the audience to rethink what they believe and come up with an opinion for themselves. Too many documentaries have simple approaches that belittle the audience, leaning too far to one side to be considered anything but propaganda. The film is subtle and quiet in its questioning, Poitras respects both her subjects and her audience too much to succumb to the silly techniques that film-makers like Michael Moore use. In the end, her piece is guaranteed to start conversation and is likely to move even the most skeptical audience member. Proving to be one of the most, if not the most interesting political documentary filmmaker, Poitras has created one of this year’s finest films that is not to be missed. [A+]
