Road to Guantanamo (Michael Winterbottom, 200)

Michael Winterbottom's Road to Guantanamo (2006) is terrific, a scathing indictment of the US Government's malevolently nebulous policy on terrorist detainees.

These aren't the worse prison conditions I've ever seen; they aren't quite concentration camps, geared towards systematic genocide. And even as detention facilities I could think of worse--say, Filipino prisons where the fellow prisoners prey on each other as much as the guards do (Mario O'Hara's Bulaklak ng City Jail (Flowers of the City Jail, 1985) comes to mind). But that a developed, supposedly advanced country organized this--worse, one that proposes to be a vanguard of democratic principles--the monumental scale of the hypocrisy, that's the real shocker, the true obscenity (I think it can be argued that this is mostly the Republican's doing--but then, where were the Democrats?).

I don't have a problem with the three youths not quite registering onscreen--truth is, they come off as shallow at first, they don't seem worth committing to memory; it's when they're being dehumanized and treated worse than animals that their identities, their very humanity, comes to fore (In a way, the film's title is brilliantly chosen, evoking as it does the Cosby-Hope "Road" movies--this is a lark, an adventure gone horribly wrong).

I don't have a problem with their motives being not that clear either--I don't think their guilt is the point, and I believe Winterbottom took care to leave their reasons as vague as they themselves allowed it to be. The point is the treatment of these prisoners; guilty or not guilty, they don't deserve this treatment, not from a civilized nation.

And that I suppose is yet another point--that with Guantanamo, the United States (or at least this Republican version of it (with the Democrats in absentia)) reveals itself as less than civilized. The early interrogations seemed not only sadistic, but incredibly inept--they appear to have been staged not to gather information but to allow these amateurs (in military uniform instead of the clothes of real intelligence operatives (those appear later, with subtler techniques)) a venue for venting their anger at the people responsible for 9/11. It's the United States trying to get a bit of its own back, and as a result perpetuating the cycle of violence.

Arguably, Winterbottom's use of both documentary and drama--re-enactments mixed with interviews of the actual detainees--is a weakness, taking away from the intensity of the re-enactments, but it does have one effect that may not be possible any other way: looking at the interviewees, it was a shock to realize that the man speaking in front of me was the smooth-faced, callow youth in the re-enactments. You wonder: what happened to him (beyond the obvious fact that, yes, they used actors (mostly non-professional) for the re-enactments)? The cliche 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' pops up, but seeing this contrast of faces, you feel as if you've witnessed the actual, working principle; you know these men have grown into their present strength. They looked like unlikely material for revolutionaries then; they seem more ready to stand up and struggle now--and that's the real danger of these detention camps.

It's interesting that Winterbottom includes scenes of the intelligence people trying to undercut the case for the detainess' innocence; they make a fairly good job of it too, or as good as they can (the three were released without any conviction, two years after they'd been captured). You get the sense that Winterbottom doesn't want to whitewash these youths, that he includes their flaws and police records and all, and at such a time--late in the film--when it would be most damaging (we've taken to them, we trust them, and it turns out they might be guilty after all?). It's arguably propaganda, but not simplistic propaganda; Winterbottom's smart enough to present the prosecution's case as well.

All in all, it's as good a film, I suspect, as we're going to get on the subject for some time. If the film hasn't made a bigger splash, well, I suspect I know the reason why: no one is eager to hear an unpleasant, unwanted truth.

Lipstick on Your Collar, Part 2

Finished "Lipstick on Your Collar." 
I looked carefully at the credit sequence; I think this is early CGI, of the type REO Speedwagon and The Cars (if I remember what little MTV I saw) used to use in their music videos...
Upbeat ending for the younger generation, who are perfectly happy with the way things turn out (World War 3 is averted, Britain fades into the background of world politics).
Funny, but the Potter figure Pvt. Francis Francis (Potter doing a little Joseph Heller here) gets the biggest reward, a beauty (Kim Huffman) who's an intellectual equal and indescribably (in other words, American) rich. Ewan McGregor gets the working-class girl Sylvia (Louise Germaine, also gorgeous--Potter, who produces, knows how to cast his heroines), and they're perfectly content to listen to all the rock 'n roll that Potter skillfully (if with less depth and feeling than with his '30s songs) sprinkles all over the place.
The only note of nostalgia and regret is struck by Thomas and McGregor's boss, Col. Bernwood (Peter Jeffrey). He remembers when England was once great and he's the one champing at the bit to invade Egypt, perhaps face off with the ultimate enemy, Soviet Russia.  It's with the less ambitious and at the same time more practical and adaptable younger uns that hope for world peace lies (Thomas and Huffman love Pushkin and Chekov, while McGregor and Germaine would rather gyrate to rock).
No it's not one of Potter's best--which means it's only one of the more complex and witty and sophisticated recent musical comedies around, instead of an indescribable masterpiece (which "Singing Detective" was).

Lipstick on Your Collar

Am more than halfway through Dennis Potter's "Lipstick on Your Collar." Interesting effort, one of his late series (the last made before he died in 1994), and the debut performance of one Ewan McGregor.
You can tell, Potter's not as much into '50s rock and roll--his use of songs are clever, even funny, but only once does the song have the same intensity as in anything in "Singing Detective," or "Pennies from Heaven." Significant choice of setting: the nationalization of the Suez, which marked the end of England's reputation as a superpower, and is at one point thought to be the start of World War 3, or the end of the world (This series was made in 1993, seven years before the millenium's end).
Even more significant is Potter's view of women. He has at least one woman in his works that is well-sketched--I'm thinking Bernadette Peters' role in Pennies from Heaven, and Janet Suzman in Detective--but only in "Detective" is there a woman (Suzman) who is on equal footing with the protagonist. Most of the time they're whores or opportunists, usually both. Well-sketched, Potter's too good not to do otherwise...but Suzman makes you realize what he can do with women characters when he puts his mind to it.
It's much better produced than "Detective"--Potter wrote and produced this, and it's said that when he surrounded himself with yes men instead of collaborators his work suffered. You can see the sets are more elaborate, and they have a few optically printed (CGI?) special effects, but it works on only two levels--fantasy and reality--where "Detective" works on four: detective story, real life, childhood, and some meta-level where all three mix and play, with concurrently far more power.
Still, wonderful comedy, funnier and more complex than any recent musical I can think of ("Moulin Rouge," "Chicago," etc.).

Singing Detective commentary, disc 1

Tremendous stuff, the commentary and supplementary material to "Singing Detective;" I usually don't listen to commentaries (life's too short) but couldn't resist here; as I suspected, a lot of Potter's life went into his work. 
Like the fact that he was sexually abused as a child.  His mother had brought him to London (much like Marlow in "Detective") to live with some relatives; and he was bunkmate to a gay uncle who fellated him at night.  Now we know where some of his horror of sex comes from. 
Also, the fact that Potter had essentially dropped the detective story thread in the first episode, but that Amiel asked him to rewrite it, and he did in seven weeks in what Amiel describes as "the most extraordinary act of creation I've ever seen."  The thread now has a more complex relationship with Marlow's real life now, and I suspect (haven't heard the commentary on disc 2) provides the basis for the show's surreal climax. 
Producer Kenith Trodd I think (or was it Jon Amiel, the director?) also notes that you can be indifferent or combative towards Potter, but the one thing he can't stand is sympathy; that really infuriates him.  We're talking one spiky son of a bitch here.
Interesting, but Amiel and Trodd point out the godlike qualities of Bill Paterson's psychiatrist.  Maybe the character does stretch credulity (Potter's actual experience with psychiatrists was far less successful), but how many government-paid therapists out there have the intelligence and will to handle a Marlow, much less Potter? Think of him as Marlow's sounding board, the way writing "Detective" was Potter's, and think of Marlow as, in effect, performing therapy on himself.  I think it works that way.
Trodd and Amiel confirm something I also suspected--that Potter came to rock music late in his career, and that this never had the emotional resonance that the songs of the '30s and '40s he grew up with had for him.  Not that those songs are better than rock 'n roll per se; it's his obsession with them that gives them much of their power (and which is why the screen version of "Detective," which uses rock, marks it as late Potter, and not on the same level as his earlier work).