Extraordinary Rendition

In the last few years, torture has become an indelible part of the film industry. Exhibit A: Saw, Hostel or any season of 24 from Day 2 onwards. Exhibit B: real-life footage that ends up on the internet. After 9/11, such material, while still disturbing, is no longer a rarity, but almost a customary element to insert in genre pictures (horror and thrillers, especially if political). As the latest addition to this trend, Extraordinary Rendition provides very little that hasn't already been told, its basic plotting and documentary-like execution making it come off as a poor man's 24.

Instead of examining the methods that are used to extract information from well known terrorists, Jim Threapleton's feature focuses on the secret sections of governments all over the world that abduct innocent people and throw unfounded accusations at them. One such innocent person is Zaafir (Omar Berdouni), a London-based teacher who is found brutally beaten at Heathrow Airport in the movie's opening sequence. As he recovers and his girlfriend tries to get him to tell everyone what happened, those events unfold on the screen: we are shown the kidnapping, the container where he is held at first, the plane that takes him somewhere in the Middle East, the terrifying procedures that are used on him while a mysterious interrogator (Andy "Gollum" Serkis) continuously asks the same questions about some criminal Zaafir is supposed to know.

The torture sequences are gruesome, and the added realism coming from the hand-held cameras and grainy cinematography ensure Threapleton manages to shock viewers with his argument: every day people are randomly abducted and harmed in all possible ways simply because they come from certain places or are associated with somebody who in return is associated with somebody else. This point of view is reflected very well: the interrogator never supplies any actual proof of the fact that Zaafir really knew the terrorist his organization is looking for, strengthening the theory that the poor fella was taken just because he was an Arab. That it never is specified what government Serkis works for also contributes to conveying the idea of this kind of thing being common everywhere.

And yet... something is missing, and that's because the director gives too much attention to the wrong section of the film:like I said before, torture is not that hard to see nowadays, meaning the largest chunk of the movie eventually becomes wearing. Too much time is wasted on the "during", while Threapleton should have cared more about constructing the "before" (providing a solid back-story that would have made the protagonist easier to empathize with) and, more crucially, the "after", analyzing the effects of these illegal actions. Sadly, that is merely a footnote in the narrative, leaving audiences understandably unimpressed by a flick that has important things to say but is unable to articulate them convincingly.

I suppose one of the things about living in a developed country is having things nicely packaged.

If I eat meat, I don't want to be presented with vivid descriptions of slaughterhouses. News programmes can show pictures of fighting in Iraq, but detailed close-ups of severed limbs are inappropriate. But if I think food has caused unnecessary suffering or illegal cruelty I might want to know. If our boys abroad fighting for king and country have raped or pillaged, I expect them to be brought to justice. No gory details, you understand. Just do something about it.

Words package things. In some cases, we can always work it out if we want a bigger picture. Foie gras. Eliminate an enemy target. Regime change. Go to the bathroom. Spare me the details.

So what about phrases like extraordinary rendition? waterboarding? Well I can explain these, I think. Extraordinary rendition is when a terrorist suspect is transported to a foreign country. Waterboarding - there's been some human rights arguments over whether that's torture or not. You pour water on someone. They worry they're drowning. Doesn't sound very nice, but not like pouring acid on them or the really nasty stuff.

The truth is, we don't have the vocabulary for things we've never imagined. Not just the words. The emotional vocabulary is lacking.

Extraordinary Rendition follows Zaafir, a London-based academic. Suddenly he is snatched from the streets, locked in a shipping container, drugged and abused. He wakes up in a foreign country where he is tortured. Various details of his life come forward where erroneous assumptions could be made. As director Jim Threapleton says, "It's about the footprints we all leave in our lives. Whether it's your credit card statements, or destinations you travelled to in your year off, or an email you may or may not have opened. Under scrutiny, that can be misinterpreted or appropriated to an agenda." Eventually, Zaafir is released without charge.

The film uses flashbacks and flash-forwards to tell the three segments of his life. His normal life as a teacher with friends and family. His traumatised self when he returns (and his uncompreheding wife). Horrific experiences abroad.

That horrific segment is simply quite graphic. Waterboarding ceases to be a concept, hiding behind nicely packaged words. It's scary sh*t. Not that they stop at that. They do the more traditionally 'really nasty stuff' too.

Extraordinary Rendition comes from a minute budget and no little integrity. It is careful not to point accusatory fingers (the truth is always more complicated), but equally careful in its researching of hundreds of cases. It was made with the assistance of Amnesty International. At the Edinburgh UK Premiere, producer Andy Noble was careful not to overstate facts (but he was equally knowledgeable and demonstrated a firm grasp of the data on the many real cases from which the story was inspired).

The main drawback of Extraordinary Rendition is its narrative structure. As soon as we know the three different sections of Zaafir's life, not a lot is added by way of plot development. I also felt the story should stand on its own without the addition of background drumming and wailing for added effect (although the diegetic sounds of a person being tortured in an adjacent room were very effective.) As a work of fiction focussing on human rights, as a protest film, it is first rate. But as cinema entertainment it may well be swamped by similar themed films using larger budgets. Like the Hollywood version (called simply 'Rendition') due for mainstream distribution only months after the release of this film.

Life in the post 9/11 world is very complicated. During any time of war, the concept of friends and enemies is always at the forefront, and, although there may at times be some confusion over who fits where, for the most part in wartime friends and enemies are pretty well defined. That easy assumption is thrown out the window by essentially two things - the "war on terrorism" in which the enemy can be defined only by their thoughts rather than by their citizenship and by the complicated demographic nature of the world today where people from all over the world live together, work together and share citizenship with each other. The paranoia that easily grips a society after a horrendous attack - witness the incarceration of thousands of loyal Canadian and American citizens of Japanese descent after the attack on Pearl Harbour - can easily get out of hand. I can remember sitting in a University history course in the mid 1980's when the subject of Japanese detention was being lectured about, and our Professor (a very well known and highly respected first-rate historian) said that we consider such a thing terrible, but that if any such thing occurred again we would immediately start to identify who we thought the enemy was and deal with them - whether they really were the enemy or not. How prophetic.

In "Extraordinary Rendition" Zaafir (Omar Berdouni) is a teacher at some level (university I would guess.) He upsets a couple of students by suggesting that there's not much difference between terrorists and freedom fighters, and that democracy is often born out of violence. Those are hardly radical concepts. I've heard it said many times that if the Americans had lost the Revolutionary War, George Washington would today be considered a terrorist. As it is, the United States regards him as a hero because he led them in a violent struggle for independence. These students apparently report him; authorities investigate him and build a case based largely on assumptions and hearsay without any solid evidence, and then pack him off to some unnamed country where he can be tortured into a confession.

Although this is a British film, any Canadian will recognize the story of Maher Arar. Arar was a Canadian citizen born in Syria who for some reason attracted the attention of Canadian and American security officials. On a visit to the U.S. Arar was arrested, accused of being a terrorist and deported - not to Canada, where he was a citizen, but to Syria, where he was born. Why? Because in Syria he could be tortured and in Canada he couldn't be. That's extraordinary rendition.

The basic story is chillingly told here, showing the happiness of Zaafir's life before all this happened, the horrendous experience he had in captivity and the devastating impact the experience had on him afterward. It's not a spy caper or a thriller. It's a very cold (in some ways) account of what can - and does - happen in today's world. There's really no resolution to the story in the end. We don't know whether Zaafir ever managed to get his life back together. I'm sure that was deliberate. The movie is supposed to leave the viewer thinking and struggling with the issues involved. Benjamin Franklin said "they that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." And Edmund Burke said "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." I think we need to relearn those lessons.

The only thing difficult about this movie is that some of it is spoken in rather hushed tones that make some of the dialogue difficult to follow, but the dialogue isn't really all that necessary to follow the story. The pictures say it all. 9/10

I read the case for this film and thought this sounds good. I check out reviews on here and thought could be very good but I was bitterly disappointed. This film struggles to keep you watching it. It is almost like they didn't know where to focus their attention. The acting wasn't amazing, its also a really short film (almost as if they were struggling for enough film time) it was just a really bad film. Makes a lot more sense on why I was able to buy it from pound land now. I DO NOT recommend this film unless you are looking for something to write a bad review about on here, in which case its perfect.

Low budget, little talent and just not well made.

That's 77 minutes of my life I would like back please

This is a very good film that deals with an extremely challenging issue in a though provoking and humane way. This movie from first time director Jim Threapleton (I knew I recognised the name, him being the ex partner of Kate Winslett) is not easy viewing as it is not meant to be. The film is the story of Zaafir (an excellent Omar Berdouni) a university lecturer who deals with contentious issues such as democracy coming out of periods of violence and is also involved in programmes that promote learning in the Islamic world. Zaafir is suddenly taken of the streets by unnamed US and British agents and then transferred to an unnamed county to be questioned / tortured all in the name of justice. The torturer in chief is never named as they would not be but is played excellently by Andy Serkiss with the right amount of evil and malice mixed with the compassion he needs to draw information. The torture sequences are rightly hard to watch and you begin to see how confessions gained in such conditions truly are worthless. The film is well directed and the editing serves the story well switching from before the kidnapping tgo after the kidnapping to show how the events not only affect Zaafir bit all those close to him especially his partner. Indeed some of the scenes between them the dialogue is intentionally very low in the mix as the raw emotions of the torture play out. Highly recommended.