I've heard great things about the movie Zero Dark Thirty but nothing I saw seemed great to me. It's basically about how the CIA managed to track down Osama bin Laden and the last twenty-five minutes of the movie are dedicated to portraying the raid where he was killed (the real operation took only a few minutes longer so it's supposedly pretty accurate). The story is told through the experiences of one female CIA agent who is presented as being largely responsible for the persistence needed to capture bin Laden.
Look at her being all America
My takeaways from this movie were that- The resources of the CIA were generally misdirected for about ten years and it was only the smarts of one woman going against the entire wealthy, powerful CIA that got bin Laden captured. If that's the case, what other inefficient and ineffective CIA operations are underway?
- Torture may be useful in getting secrets out of detainees? I don't want to put words in the film's mouth here. But if the CIA thought torture was useful, why was bin Laden discovered years after torture was prohibited and why didn't torture lead us directly to him when it was condoned?
- Killing our No. 1 Enemy solved all the problems. I know of no one who felt that 9/11 was avenged by bin Laden's death, so am I supposed to feel like America triumphed at the end of this movie? Is that how you felt when you watched it, any of you who watched it and liked it?
I suspect that economic development - by bringing people out of poverty - has done and will continue to do more to prevent terrorism than killing any terrorist leader has ever done, or will ever do.
I went into the movie with the impression that it was supposed to portray torture as effective (and there was/is a political argument in DC about it, accusing the CIA of pushing the movie as pro-torture propaganda), so as I watched it I did not feel like it accomplished that. I saw gratuitous torture that produced little useful intel. The most effective thing was this lady's hunches, and it was only luck that they turned out to be right. Now, I really really liked this film. It was an excellent story, and it was told powerfully and well. But it's Hollywood. They based it on real events, but it is never a good idea to believe a movie is going to give you the real deal, so take each with a grain of salt.
ReplyDeleteWhen we killed bin Laden I didn't feel anything had changed, but I get the impression from this movie and from that one episode of the Newsroom that it did bring some peace/closure to some people; people who lost way more than I did in the 9/11 attack. Our counterattack was for vengeance. Perhaps it can be argued that it was also to maintain our rep as a tough country, or to destroy evil in other countries, but I don't think those were the big reasons for the manhunt.
I would also like to add that I think it's unreasonable to have expected results any sooner than we got. Every move we make has to balance politics with moral goals, so of course it was going to be an inefficient way to get at bin Laden, even if all of our methods were effective 100% of the time. My own moral code says torture's effectiveness does not even come into the picture: it is wrong whether or not it works, so the propaganda issue is lost on me. The only reason it should matter to anyone is if they believe torture would be okay if it were effective, and that terrifies me.
Okay okay, I liked the story and I really liked the way the movie told it. I don't believe it gave me anything I could use as solid facts; it did not convince me about anything to do with torture, and it reaffirmed my belief that the government moves in slow and mysterious ways. It was just a movie.
Good thoughts. We say "all's fair in love and war" but the nice thing about modern humans is that they make treaties that say that some things AREN'T fair in war, such as genocide and torture of prisoners. I hope such laws continue to strengthen (the UN will probably never be able to get people to stop cheating at love though).
ReplyDeleteI still don't buy this story as a tale of successful vengeance however. If it's all Hollywood anyway, I would have been happier, and prouder, if the CIA threw their support behind a tightly bonded corps of agents, perhaps led by this persevering heroine. Together the crew would slowly but surely track bin Laden down. Not Maya fighting the CIA the whole way.
I guess I'm thinking of an operation more like the one from the movie Munich. I got a stronger sense of outrage and desire for vengeance from that movie than from Zero Dark Thirty, even though only 11 athletes were killed in the Olympic games and 3,000+ people were killed on 9/11. I hope that ZDT is inaccurate due to its Hollywood origins, and I hope the real effort was more unified and worth the ten years that it took.
Any idea why Maya was crying at the end?
*I have not seen the movie*
ReplyDeleteI just want to throw in my thoughts on the whole "Celebrating killing Osama bin Laden." I'm not going to lie here. I am anti-death penalty, anti-torture, and all that. But when I read on twitter while sitting in the library that the president was about to make an announcement, and twitter exploded about how we'd killed bin Laden, I was smiling as the frat boys at my school ran through the library screaming U-S-A! U-S-A! Now, I feel slightly guilty about this, but then again, I don't. (The following are my thoughts on the matter, using my young adult book love)
Osama bin Laden, to me, was like America's Voldemort. Bin Laden seemed to be this shadow that hung over our country- we never knew if he was going to do something like that again. He was this evil lurking somewhere in the world, hell-bent on destroying us. I know there are all sorts of variables that played towards his decisions (and probably shouldn't therefore be called evil), but the fact is, that he scared me. And even though more will take his place, he was the face of terrorism for many people in our country, and knowing that that particular threat was gone was really reassuring.
Just thought I'd give my two cents.
Sav! SPOILERS, SWEETIE! Sorry! Just don't read this comment until you've seen the film.
ReplyDeleteAndi, hon, have you really never wept after finishing something you put all your efforts into, when everyone was fighting you every step of the way, when 90% of the time even you believed you'd fail? Well, I guess I haven't either, but crying is not just something that happens when someone is sad or stressed. It often occurs following a sudden loss of a chronic stressor. Like a parent's joyful weeping at the return of a kidnapped child. She had lost and lived so much in Pakistan; she had also achieved something that was nigh on impossible. I was surprised she didn't start crying when she opened the body bag to confirm... but that's shock for you. She probably couldn't feel anything until way after the fact. In terms of storytelling, I thought her exit from the Middle East was an excellent point for her to break, and it was a perfect way to end the movie.
I can't compete with all this poetic justice! You ladies have beautiful souls and are making me feel weepy inside.
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