The Mauritanian (2021) Review

rating: ****

the story: A Guantanamo Bay detainee struggles to win his freedom.

review: There are plenty of people who would assume they know exactly how to respond to a movie with this subject matter. And yet, here is The Mauritanian being more or less released to little enough attention. 

It deserves better. It is of course an incredible story, and a true one, about the most controversial of the responses to 9/11 (no shortage of material there), and relentlessly sure that it is in fact representing an innocent man caught up in it.

Tahar Rahim plays the suspected terrorist Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Jodie Foster and Shailene Woodley his public defenders, and Benedict Cumberbatch the face of the prosecution, who quickly enough questions if he’s on the right side of justice.

Rahim became an instant favorite of mine from Mary Magdalene, where he played a surprisingly sympathetic Judas (so he has clearly found himself a type), Foster is Foster, Woodley has the trademark random moment where she seems to forget she’s not a model (for me, anyway; it popped up in the Divergent movies when she’s flying in a futuristic helicopter; I don’t get why she keeps getting away with it, although otherwise she’s a fine actress). For Cumberbatch, putting on another fine vocal performance, it’s an interesting companion to the equally compelling The Courier, also released this year. Zachary Levi has a supporting role as a part of the system that let everything happen to Slahi. It’s another chance to broaden his range, a full dramatic turn where he’s not a good guy.

At the end there’s footage of Slahi himself, which lends credibility to the idea that this story can be taken at face value, that the film’s positive opinion of him is a reflection of how positive he himself is, so many years after all this began, everything he endured.

The effect is to put a face on the whole thing, not just to say there’s been gross injustice or that everyone detained there has a similar story and is worth rooting for, but that so few stories have come out, much less one this seemingly unlikely. Many reviews have suggested it’s some sort of confusing mess, which it is not. Presumably so the critics don’t come off as sympathetic to a terrorist.

Foster’s character has a response to that kind of reasoning right in the movie. Don’t let such nonsense get in your way.

Mary Magdalene (2019)

rating: ****

the story: Mary decides to follow Jesus Christ, but finds Peter about as accepting as her brother had been.

review: With Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix leading the cast, it's safe to say Mary Magdalene isn't necessarily the kind of movie that will appeal only to Christian audiences (plenty of uninspired filmmaking does exactly that, though).  Mara is the eponymous Mara, Phoenix is Jesus.  The fact that it isn't entirely beholden to the religious viewer doesn't mean Mary Magdalene is akin to The Last Temptation or Jesus Christ Superstar.  It's a serious approach that wishes to explain the material at face value, not wildly reinterpret it.

Mary as the central subject is a way to explore not only how the ministry of Jesus would've looked, but the world around it, and even Jesus himself.  I don't think any of it radically departs from the Gospels, but there's also room for an interesting idea or two.

The most interesting one, perhaps, is exploring the character of Judas Iscariot (a brilliant Tahar Rahim), the apostle who would later betray Jesus.  Here he's depicted as a true believer, but motivated, it seems, in the hope that Jesus will resurrect his dead family.  Conversely, Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor in his best role since 12 Years a Slave) is presented perhaps for the first time as the grumpy figure he always was, without the focus on his ultimate redemption, just how he would've come across before it. 

Mara has been a fascinating chameleon at least since her breakthrough role as Lisbeth Salander in the Hollywood version of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (the performance, and the movie itself, still criminally underrated).  She tends to inhabit low-key individuals in trying situations, and is always compelling to watch.  Her Mary has an older brother who's scandalized that their father has been indulging her, letting her remain unmarried and living at home well past the traditional norms.  If there's something of the modern feminist in the conception of Mary in the film, it becomes less about that and more the liberating idea of finding freedom in budding Christianity, an idea that seems completely outrageous today.

Jesus in the movie becomes drained of energy in vast crowds, especially when dispensing miracles.  I don't know if the idea is unique to this movie, but it's perhaps the most humanizing thing it does with someone who has sometimes seemed difficult to conceptualize on a human scale (although many have argued that he was just human, even those who believed in him).  His disgust at the tenders of sacrificial lambs at the temple is one of the most electrifying sequences in a movie about Jesus ever filmed, finding new context in one of the familiar scenes of his life.  In this version, the disgust is more about the awareness of his impending sacrifice (the whole entrance to Jerusalem is fraught with destiny) than profaning God's home with mere financial matters.

Anyway, we also get a scene or two in a synagogue, which surprisingly is something that's never really been emphasized in a story about Jesus.  When you remember that Jesus was Jewish, and that he was known to preach in synagogues, it seems all the more surprising, but then so few attempts have been made to stray, in good faith, from the traditional narratives.  It's actually Mary attending services, by the way. 

I don't know if watching a film like this will affect someone's perspective on matters of faith, but it feels like something that has genuine insight, and on that level alone can be recommended.  But it's also good filmmaking and worthwhile viewing for fans of Mara, Phoenix, and Ejiofor.