Rosewater 2014

     This film is based on actual events and based on the memoir, Then They Came for Me.  The setting is in Iran of June 2009.  Maziar Bahari is a broadcast journalist with Canadian citizenship reporting in Iran on the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  The people feel his opponent Mir-Hossein Mousavi was the winner and the election was a farce since the results were reported before the poles closed.  Maziar sent footage of the street riots to the BBC and he was detained, interrogated and tortured in prison for 118 days.  The government in Iran believed Maziar was a spy working for the American government and the CIA. 

     This is not a light movie except for the scenes prior to Maziar’s imprisonment.  Publicity and denouncement of the imprisonment from Hillary Clinton and other officials on television aided Maziar in his release because the prison officials hated their comments.  Maziar’s wife was writing letters, receiving attention from the media and leading an international campaign for his freedom.  The officials wanted Maziar to “control his wife?”  3* (This movie is OK)   

103 min, Bio directed by Jon Stewart with Gael Garcia Bernal, Kim Bodnia, Dimitri Leonidas, Haluk Bilginer, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Golshifteh Farahani, Claire Foy, Amir El-Masry, Nasser Faris, Kambiz Hosseini.

Note:  Imdb 6.6 out of 10, 77% critic 68% audience, Roger Ebert 3*.

Special Note:  Prior to going to Iran, Maziar gave an interview to a colleague of Jon Stewart joking that he was a spy.  Maziar’s interrogator always wore the scent of rosewater which is a distillation of rose petals.  $300,000 bail was paid for his release and the promise he would spy for the Iranian Government.