For popular demand, many avid readers have been asking for me to write more on movies, this new feature is for them. Each month I will select a film that I think is important to see and worth my while to write about and for you to read. This month we will look at 2006's Docu-Drama The Road to Guantanamo directed by Micheal Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story) . Part Documentary, part narrative this film follows the true story of "The Tipton Three," three English Muslim men who were wrongfully accused as Taliban members during the U.S. led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The film opens with the talking heads of the three friends and how they traveled to Pakistan to see their friend get married. Before getting married the men make a trip to Afghanistan to see the situation going on and to do some soul searching. After staying in the war torn country they decide they have had enough and want to get back, they link up with a driver who unknowingly had connections to terrorist cells and uses the men as members of the terrorist organization. While the friends think they are getting out of the country they get raided by U.S. military and are captured and sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and are tortured and treated as terrorists, while the innocent men where just in the wrong place at the wrong time. While the pain and suffering these friends endure, all they can do is bond, pray and try to keep their spirits up. Please note the torture sequences are some of the most devastating and brutal things I have witnessed on screen. Its a story from those whose voice has been repressed by the prejudice and accusations brought forth to their culture by a select few. This had to have been one of the most thought provoking and important films I have ever seen, and anyone living in a post 9/11 World needs to see this film.
