What's in a scent? And how could it become the way a captive identifies his prisoner? We find out that the title and the title character were inspired by an early childhood memory. Maziar Bahari, a journalist living and working in the UK, born in Iran, can remember his older sister bringing him to a sacred Shi'ite shrine in Iran, where the faithful are sprayed with rose-scented water. Roses are then shown being transformed into perfume, and said scent being sprayed liberally by a middled-aged man being driven to Bahari's childhood home.
From there, the movie is made of brief scenes, set at first in flashbacks, then in present time. As Bahari is questioned, then arrested, then kept in solitary confinement, then physically and psychologically tortured almost every day of his captivity, he slowly comes to know his "Specialist" by the same rose scent he remembers and associates with his beloved, martyred sister.
Since September 11th's terrorist attacks, movies and television shows have delighted in giving us torture scenes, mostly to convince the public that torture works. At least, it works on the bad guys. When the good guys are tortured, they of course don't crack. Rosewater has no use for those tropes. The memoir was written by a tortured journalist, who was innocent of any crime. His truths were ignored. His lies were eagerly swallowed and publicized for the world to watch. Although, let's face it, he's telling the truth about Fort Lee.
Psychological torture, according to Bahari, works by a combination of: isolation, moderate amounts of physical pain that create the fear of more, and the fear of death with loved ones never knowing your fate. How does Bahari keep his sanity? Well, first of all, the movie is kind of ambiguous on how much sanity Bahari actually manages to keep. He speaks to his dead father throughout. The senior Bahari is always impeccably dressed, and quietly adamant that he never broke. Is that the fantasy Bahari has of his father? A man the Shah, ruling from 1953 until 1979, could never break? Bahari also spends his time in prison very carefully lifting his required blindfold whenever he thinks he can get away with it. Don't the guards know that the blind compensate for not seeing their way? Eventually, the blind can remember every step of a place, every location.
Interrogation sessions are conducted in a relatively bare office. Every time, Rosewater, the "Specialist" assigned to Bahari, has different files with pictures, or different accusations for Bahari. Bahari must defend the actions of a free man enjoying life at every turn. Rosewater is also quite the creep, treating Bahari like a secretary he wants to sexually harass. Bahari squirms throughout their sessions. He varies between fear of what the Iranian government can do to him, and pity at how ignorant his captors are.
The ignorance of his former government, in turn imposed on his fellow Iranians, is what concerns Bahari most of all. From the moment he is driven away from Tehran's airport by Davoud, his trusty driver, until the moment he's arrested, Bahari is trying to capture the mood and events leading up to what many hope will be a reformed Iran. Maybe, even a free one. Bahari is happy to portray the unhappiness of the people with Ahmadinejad, and their hopes for his challenger, Mousavi. Davoud considers himself lucky: he illegally distributes satellite dishes to those who wish to access information from outside Iran, and calls his collection on the roof of his home "Dish University". He and his younger brother and friends, all men, of course, spend nights learning about the outside world.
When not covering the election, he's trying to explain it to Western audiences. With Stewart's co-worker Jason Jones literally repeating his original interview of Bahari in a Tehran cafe, Bahari happily plays along with all of Jones' jokes, including the one where Jones pretends he's an American spy. Which Davoud is confused and unhappy about, because apparently, humor isn't understood in Tehran.
When the election is clearly rigged, and Bahari knows it from his own exit polling, he and his fellow British journalists band together to cover the social unrest that followed. Stock images from news organizations at the time blend into one another, including the shooting death of a young woman, tended to on the street. Davoud, angry with Bahari for only taking "safe" footage until then, urges him to film the government shooting protesters on the street, which he then does. Davoud calls Bahari's camera a "weapon".
When Bahari releases his footage to the UK, he finds himself arrested and in Evin Prison for 118 days. And his interview with Jason Jones, claiming to be an American spy, is taken as a criminal confession. Bahari tries explaining humor to his captors, but these guys think every Western movie is pornography.
Despite the pain, loneliness, lies, and fear, Bahari realizes his captors are actually more afraid of him than he could ever be of them, when he learns that the international community and his British wife never forgot him. His mother, appearing submissive as he was driven away, immediately called lawyers to get him free. Even his prison guard thinks he's best friends with Hillary Clinton. So, after Rosewater grants him a phone call to his wife, demanding that he put a stop to her activism, Bahari simply ends up laughing at Rosewater's stupidity in letting him learn his daughter will be named after his sister, long ago killed by the religious fanatics now in charge. When Rosewater's boss tries to lord himself over Bahari to get a final piece of paper signed, Bahari simply signs it, knowing that his captors are fighting to preserve their hold on something they've never had: the will of the people of Iran.
This may not have been the best, most epic torture movie of all time. It's not a long film, and doesn't follow Bahari through every minute, every conversation, every ending. But the specificity of what is revealed keeps it from being torture porn. And Bahari's realistic giving in to his captors when useful, and resisting when he can, is certainly a welcome change from the tribal hagiography we've all come to expect from post 9/11 movies.
The most telling scene: Bahari, despite his imprisonment, looks happy and relieved as a British voice announces their takeoff from Tehran. He's free! He's going home! He's free! His time in Evin Prison hasn't eroded his sense of delicious irony, though; when he sees another passenger voluntarily putting on a blindfold to sleep on the long flight, Bahari doesn't panic; he can only smile to himself. But, no blindfolds for him. He wants to see everything, from now on.
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