Viva Guantánamo, Abajo Children Of Men

* Updated *

American beneficence to its incarcerated suspects is incredible! As this Wall Street Journal column, "The Gitmo High Life," reports:

When it comes to medical care, almost no expense is spared -- as I discovered after spotting an overweight man lounging in the rec yard of Camp Five. "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?" I inquired (he was some distance away). "No, that's Paracha," came the somewhat exasperated reply.

Saifullah Paracha is a Pakistani businessman and media owner who claims two meetings with Osama bin Laden were purely for journalistic interest. He is believed to be an important figure in the case against Majid Khan, one of the 14 "high value" detainees recently transferred to Gitmo from CIA custody. Last year Mr. Paracha's son Uzair was sentenced to 30 years in a U.S. prison for aiding an al Qaeda operative in a plot to bomb U.S. targets.

Maybe terrorism is stressful work. But whatever the reason, the elder Paracha also suffers from heart disease. So late last year -- at an expense of some $400,000 -- the U.S. government flew down doctors and equipment to perform cardiac catheterization. Mr. Paracha's response was to refuse treatment and file a petition in U.S. federal court for transfer to a hospital in the U.S. or Pakistan. At least his lawyers were frank about their cynical motives: "His death in U.S. captivity would be a blow to American prestige."

* Update *
Related: "edgy and sexy" pro malo legal practice -- "major American law firms effectively subsidize interned terrorists"

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Aside: Yesterday I squandered a couple of hours watching the dystopian, despairing, nihilistic, anti-family values (and mostly, anti-logic) flick, Children of Men. "The Gitmo High Life" brings it to mind because COM takes repeated rhetorical aim, as only cinema can, at the alleged fascistic cruelty with which Western governments treat immigrants. As with Windtalkers, COM's protagonist is a spiritually marooned, straight, white male who delivers (in this case, literally) a person of color from a wartorn setting for his own and Western civilization's secular redemption. Its dramatic inspiration issues from a colossal collapse of  time-tested Western warrior values whose scope boggles the mind. What the hell did its screenwriters learn in college and/or film school? (For starters, they only half-digested 1984 and must have mainlined Withnail and I.) Similar to another current release, Blood Diamond, if the protagonist would simply have picked up a gun (or rifle or machete) during select moments in the script -- and used it! -- the movie would be over in a snap because then he would actually solve the dramatic problems instead of squirming from one scene of impotent exposure to violence to the next.

JMK gives Children of Men two middle fingers down! DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME ON IT.

Comments

[Erica]

Wow, you're one of few other Americans I know of who've even heard of/seen Withnail & I.

Of the only other people I know of who've seen it besides you and I, one is a Pakistani Brit (one of my best friends), and the other one, unfortunately, is no longer with us...the guy on my sidebar, Bubba.

It was his favorite movie. One of mine too.

[Mia Trudeaux]

Hmmmmmm, I didn't think the movie deserved an Oscar or anything but I thought the premise was good since we could very well arrive at that point if we don't stop poisoning our reproductive systems (cancer not to mention dysfunction and spontaneous miscarriages).

Admittedly, the direction of the script lacked complexity but it was consistent. The progression of labor to childbirth was completely unrealistic but Clive Owen was hot! I'd trust him with my life too if I were the last female on earth carrying the first human being to be born after nearly two decades of infertility!

Still, I can appreciate your critique. The film clearly was made for those who have fought, lost and eventually succeeded to procreate.

[JMK]

Hi Mia,

The premise was interesting but also baffling. Why were women infertile, anyway? The story offered no environmental or conspiracy theories. So I took global infertility as a metaphor for the spiritual "dead zone" of a decaying, almost fascist society perpetually at war for ambiguous reasons against am ambiguous enemies (a sloppy melange of Bosnia in the 90s and Baghdad in the 00s). And why was this woman so fortunate to be able to conceive? It struck me as a secular reworking of the miracle of Christ's coneption and birth. Not for me, "buyer beware," etc.

The child's delivery sure was unrealistic. Other aspects too. At one point he's pushing a stalled vehicle uphill(!) out of mudslick (yeah, right!). All the heavily-accented jibberish seemed a kind of insult to Eastern European immigrants.

[JMK]

Oh, Erica, if I'd known Withnail & I would have struck a chord, I might have introduced it differenlty. That movie is replaceable, but your Bubba, obviously, is not.

[Erica]

It's all good, JMK...no worries. He's gone more than seven months already and besides, I can't expect people to (if you'll pardon the expression) pussyfoot around on my account.

I'm sensitive, sure...but life, thank heavens, goes on.

[Jake]

Jeremiah:

I think you misred the film. The book was written by a political and religious conservative who I think was trying to rant AGAINST the nihilism that's inherent in Europe's real-life low birth rate. And didn't you think the leftist terrorist were portrayed much worse than the government and the troops? I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone, so I won't list any scenes, but I have a lot of evidence to back me up. I'm sorry, but I saw COM as a powerful lesson in human despair and eventually hope.

[JMK]

Hi Jake,

Nice to hear from you.

Well, if that's the case then the author (or screenwriters) may have some other values quite confused.

The story speaks heavily of Western decline and decadence without championing any virtues that make, or might restore, a Western society. None, we are led to believe, except this baby we're all expecting.

People of stong religious conviction are portrayed as cultish freaks wearing sandwichboard signs. Immigration is a virtual concentration camp instead of a privileged screening process by which to determine who truly deserves residency (or asylum). Michael Caine's lines questioning why marijuana is (still) illegal were gratuitous. So, too, the pregnant woman's speech lamenting that the dairy industry cuts off cows' teats. These inject content straight out of NORML and PETA that have nothing to do with the plot. They do have something to do with it, however, if your purpose is to knit a blanket condemnation of contemporary Western society, something I find it intellectually and morally lazy. This happens often in Hollywood movies; I call it the "Brechtian infomercial" school of screenwriting (which half of Blood Diamond was).

Some story elements were underdeveloped or should not have been introduced in the first place. Clive's (I forget the character's name) ears ring after the early street explosion: OK. That point is taken up only once more when Julianne Moore tells us he's losing his hearing. It's a potentially interesting and poignant dramatic element. Jet planes carrying out the air strike at the very end could have been a could place to "play" on that theme -- sonic boom, bombs booming, something the woman wanted to tell him being lost in his final deafness....

I also think that Clive was entitled to more outrage and even personal retribution against the terrorists for murdering the love of his life and mother of his child. But that would mean he gets to embody heroism beyond that of being a male midwife. And since unmanly men are the norm in dystopian totalitarian movies -- like Winston Smith in 1984 and the guy in Brazil -- I'm inclined to see COM as being made in their image.

You're right that the terrorists were portrayed unsympathetically, as cynical desperados. That is necessary -- and I like that the dumb terrorist dude assumed the baby was a boy -- but not sufficient for telling a convincing dramatic tale.

Bottom line: when striving for civilizational allegory the elements have to line up seamlessly. One often does better to keep it simple. Think of Bergman's Shame, whose final sequence Children of Men clearly borrowed from for its own final sequence....

[JMK]

Oh, one more thing: the naming of the child.

At first it was going to be Froley, some bizarre nonsense. Then it was Bazooka, which seemed an adolescent or mischievous nod to incessant low-intensity warfare. And then ... Dylan. That, along with the 60s tunes we'd already heard, made me groan.

[jake]

Well, I like a lot of movies that leave things up to the audience's imagination. I think you'd agree that too many Hollywood movies spoon-feed everything and kill our imagination.

Hey, we can agree to disagree. I thought it was a really powerful movie.

[JMK]

Happily disagree. Glad you're back!