Rabiye Kurnaz contre George W. Bush

The film by Andreas Dresen, who by the way is also one of nine justices at the supreme court of the German state of Brandenburg, surprisingly does not focus on the legal, political or generally cultural matter involved. Instead, this work's main focus is a portrayal of the characters involved. This is done well thanks to good performances from Kaplan and Scheer. The film itself is thus reasonably enjoyable and quite light-hearted for the dark subject.

6 Out of 10. Not spectacular, but easily better than anything involving Till Schweiger.

This movie defuses the sensationalisms typical of the great anti-system stories through irony; also it is devoid of the usual knee-jerk anti-americanism of too many euopean fils when they deal with questions in which american policies are less than fair and correct like the twin wars in Afghanistan and Irak. Between the start and the end of Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush are highlighted a couple of significant moments, both marked by the faces of two conservative heads of state, visible on the television screen. The first is that of Bush Jr., in the aftermath of the attack on the Twin Towers. The second is that of Angela Merkel, at the time of her election as Federal Chancellor of Germany. The camera seems to frame them in the same way, with the television image ideally replacing the cinematographic one. If the first, Bush jr, returns the figure of otherness, of the one who in the course of the story will be exalted as a symbol and spokesperson for the injustices of the American anti-terrorist system, the second, A. Merkel, takes on an opposite, almost salvific value. Not only for the speed with which the newly elected government corrects the political mistakes of the previous German administration, but for what the wind of change brings for the film's desperate protagonist. She resigned at that moment to the possibility that her son would never return from the Cuban prison of Guantánamo. Inspired by true events, Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush recounts the legal (and emotional) odyssey that the Turkish housewife Rabiye Kurnaz (Meltem Kaptan) had to face from 2001 to 2006 to ascertain the innocence of her son, and ensure his return to Germany from the terrible detention. Like many of the Guantánamo detainees of that period, the young Murat had no ties to Al Qaeda or affiliations of any kind to terrorist organizations. His only fault was that he was in Karachi, Pakistan, where some of the terrorists responsible for the attack were staying. An already dramatic situation, which Andreas Dresen however chooses to tell through the canons of comedy. In order to retrace the (extra) ordinariness of the matter, through the most eminently ridiculous emotions and drifts of everyday life. In this sense, the efforts, doubts and frantic battles of Rabiye and her lawyer Bernhard Docke (Alexander Scheer) open up in the eyes of the public as glimpses of everyday life, with all the ensuing repercussions in terms of emotional communication. Seeing a mother's courage in transcending the impossible thus becomes for the spectator the preferential path to empathy, and for the film a way (even a little good-natured and condescending) of defusing the sensationalisms typical of great stories through irony of anti-systemic revenge. And like works like Philomena or Erin Brockovich this film manages to fluidly link the narrative trope of "David vs. Goliath" to the overwhelming charisma of its (however earthy) heroine. If anything, the problem lies in the lightness with which it glosses over the socio-political ramifications behind the battle. In the obsessive propensity to sweeten a more complex and articulated subject than that testified by the images of the story. Also (and above all) with regard to its most critical consequences. Here, only the detail of her is of interest: that is, giving life to the sincere and faithful portrait of a mother, grappling with radical situations that lead her to question the nature of her motherhood.

Humanism, democracy and enlightenment are the cornerstones of the correct idea of equality before the law. This means that even opponents, or potential opponents of humanism, democracy and enlightenment should be equal before the law - and that is right. If one has internalized humanism, democracy and enlightenment, it is an a priori decision not to slip into the barbarism of the opponents or the supposed opponents. Thus, the mass-murdering German fascists have received constitutional procedures, Islamist head-cutters and bombers are provided with lawyers and vigilante justice is not only frowned upon, but also punishable. If we did not act in this way, we would be taking a step toward the opponents of democratic republics every time and undermining our own idea. The fact that the rule of law cannot work flawlessly and is by no means uncorruptible is part of the critical self-reflection that should be a matter of course in a democracy. There can be misjudgments, prejudiced work, political agendas and so on and so forth. But the detention center at Guantanamo Bay cannot be considered such a mistake, or such a weakness - often reaching into different areas of society - to be dealt with through democratic discourse. Guantanamo is, in fact, the deliberate undermining of the rule of law, the de facto abolition of equal rights and a means of struggle that has nothing to do with the values of humanism, democracy and enlightenment.

Unfortunately, none of this is the subject of this German film, which attempts to retell the story of a Guantanamo prisoner from Germany (but with a Turkish passport) from the point of view of his mother. The film tries to stage an a-typical German film with typical German humor, typical German tragedy and typical German tearjerker - and of course fails on all levels. The jokes are inappropriate and they are not funny at all, the tragedy is flat, which is only built up in individual moments that seem to follow a pattern of sadness. In addition, there are supposedly artistic stagings that are interspersed like little morsels and cry out for the film to be understood as a deep work with great metaphors, but also as one with a true core. The acting performances are admittedly better than in the vast majority of German film productions, but that doesn't make them truly great. It's the same with the narrative structure and the camera work, while the dialogues are as usual underground. But the most tragic thing is the lack of deeper levels of the complex theme that carries the film. This wasted potential would have needed some courage to realize, though. Courage to dive self-critically into one's own hemisphere of politics, society and law, courage to claim the viewer intellectually and courage also to criticize the taint of religious vanity.

The latter would have worked with a simple reference at the end of the film, an insertion of the written word just before the credits. There it could have been mentioned that Kurnaz's motivation, perhaps naively shortly after the horrific attacks on 9/11, was indeed one with extremely religious connotations. It could have been mentioned that Kurnaz was in contact with explicitly anti-Western Islamic groups, such as the anti-intellectual Tablighi Jamaat, which locates Islam more in deed than in word - and certainly not in discourse. There could have been mention of the Gesinnungsfärbung of his Bremen mosque, which cannot exactly be perceived as friendly to democracy, and there could also have been mention of his various contacts with criminal structures in Germany. But all of this seemed to interfere with the narrative that was to be presented here, although if this was the case when the film was made, it can simply be explained as a misguided decision born of despondency. For in fact, as discussed at the beginning of the critique, all this does not change Kurnaz's right to the rule of law, for the rule of law can only exist, indeed, can only be, if it sees itself as universal. None of this would have changed the fact that Guantanamo is an undermining of the rule of law and that the detention of people on this island lacks any basis that humanism, democracy and enlightenment have to offer. Democracy and enlightenment have to offer. Instead, this way the film would have dived deeper, the solidarity would have been for democracy and would not have fallen prey to a senseless dualism, as it is already announced in the title of the film. Instead, a lack of reflection is thrown around, as if this was a kamelle at the Cologne carnival.

His is also evident, but not only, in the treatment of the marriage theme, which has been dealt with here in a visibly culturally relativistic way. The way of arranging a marriage, including bride money, which seems very strange for democrats, to say the least, is simply reproduced here uncritically and made a bit more socially acceptable. What is ignored here is that reactionary cultural traditions weaken a free society and do not promote its pluralism. The courting of this topic is embarrassing, unpleasant and - worst of all - emblematic of modern social discourse. Whereby the designation as discourse is only appropriate here if this is understood as weakening and undermining numerous other discourses, indeed the discursive capacity of a society itself.

Once again a wasted chance of an actually interesting topic for cinema and film and unfortunately, unfortunately typical for Germany.

I read about how this man was tortured in Guantanamo and none of this horror was transmitted in the movie. It was not clear what he had gone to Pakistan to do. Apparently he had just turned 19 yo and wanted to study there but was turned down so spent 2 months as a pilgrim going from mosque to mosque. Why not alternate between footages of his family struggle and what was happening to him so the viewer could get a clear view that he was innocent and hence sympathize more? Futhermore, the mother is depicted as lively and humurous. I failed to see the in the character a suffering mother and the father seemed not to care at all.

In the end, she just stood up the lawyer who had been working for them for free for almost 5 years. Also didn't help the viewer sympathize with the main character.

Overall the story is good and it had potential to be a movie about human rights, but I think it failed to achieve all that potential and why this case was important.