'Zero Dark Thirty' recounts the hunt for Osama bin Laden
Some have claimed that the depiction of some of the enhanced interrogation techniques (e.g. waterboarding) involved in the search for bin Laden are tantamount to an endorsement of torture. This is a patently ridiculous claim of course. “Zero Dark Thirty” is no more pro-torture than “Independence Day” is pro-alien invasion or “Home Alone” is pro-child abandonment. Depiction does not necessarily equal approval.
The last decade has been a minefield of moral complexities, and any claim to the contrary displays a very narrow, black and white view of a world colored in shades of gray. “Zero Dark Thirty” plunges us directly into the middle of those moral gray areas of America’s war on terror, and more specifically, the unsung heroes whose passion and determination helped bring the world’s most wanted man to justice.
Jessica Chastain stars as Maya, a CIA agent tasked with heading up the task force to track down bin Laden. Through hours of interrogations in CIA black sites around the globe, Maya uncovers a lead that she follows for years, even as her superiors lose faith in its validity, eventually leading to the door of an anonymous compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on a day that would change the world.
Bigelow, who also directed “The Hurt Locker,” again proves her mettle for taut, straightforward filmmaking, balancing on a razor’s edge of suspense with her gritty, no frills style. The final raid on bin Laden’s compound is a master class in suspense filmmaking and is one of the most striking scenes in any film from the past year.
Bigelow drops us into the middle of SEAL Team Six’s fateful operation, and when the moment we’ve all been waiting for finally comes, it is neither exploitative or distasteful. It is stark, clear-eyed and almost clinical, much like the rest of the film. “Zero Dark Thirty” never gives us a moment of triumph per se, just another ambiguity in a never-ending line, but there is something strangely cathartic about its steely distillation of the first 10 years of the new American century, and what would become, as some would argue, the rotting of its soul.
That’s what makes this film so fascinating. It is neither a condemnation nor a celebration of torture, but a depiction of what America has become. It is a portrait of heroism and a chronicle of the darkness in which we have had to descend in order to save ourselves. Nowhere is that more clearly embodied than in the extraordinary performance of Chastain, whose stark resolve masks the pain of a nation seeking justice at all costs for a wound that can never fully heal.
This is crackerjack filmmaking, at once thrilling and deeply felt, a gripping CIA procedural that shows us what great movies are all about.
Matthew Lucas, a former Davidson County resident, studied theater and film studies at Appalachian State University. He now resides in Banner Elk and has a blog where he posts movie news, reviews and commentary at www.fromthefrontrow.net.
