Jamie passion and passionfruit!

This is definitely a film in the realms of agit-prop but in a way it is more than that.  A testament to the abuse of power by the world’s biggest and more influential army and the powerlessness of ordinary people in the face of it.    Michael Winterbottom is the British director who never does the same style twice – even if this has elements of 24-hour Party People.  This time he does a drama documentary recreating the fate of the Tipton three – Pakistani British boys in the East for a wedding who go to Afghanistan and end up being caught and sent to Guantanamo as terrorists.  Over two years later they are released following a failure to find any evidence against them but after being tortured and maltreated and without so much as an apology.  Winterbottom uses interviews with the real survivors, recreates scenes with actors and uses real TV footage of both Afghanistan and Bush to make his point.  As with all his films there may be rough edges, some slack plot moments and in this one a degree of confusion which reflects what was going on at the time.  And yet, there is also a fascination and a sense of measured discovery as we get to see something that purports to show us what the media were muzzled from doing at the time.  This is not a great film but it is an important one and it works.  The acting is fine and as a stone in the wall to balance the propaganda we get from the world’s governments it can only be hailed.

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