Jon Stewart's "Rosewater" tells the harrowing, true-life story of Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari, a journalist who was arrested and interrogated by security forces in part because of an appearance on satirical American television program "The Daily Show."
To bring Bahari's story to life, Stewart cast Gael Garcia Bernal. The quiet, soft-spoken actor is a Mexican native best-known for his roles in films such as "Y Tu Mamá También" by "Gravity" director Alfonso Cuarón, or the role of Ché Guevara in Walter Salles epic 'The Motorcycle Diaries." Casting Bernal may not have been an obvious choice, but it's an excellent one. Bernal inhabits the character well, providing a mix of strength, intelligence, and vulnerability that helps bring this vital and interesting story to life.
Moviefone Canada spoke to Bernal during the Toronto Film Festival.
Moviefone Canada: What brought you to the project?
Gael Garcia Bernal: John invited me over. He sent me the [Bahari's] book, and more or less explained what he wanted to do and asked me if I saw myself in it.
Part of this story is to immerse yourself in Farsi culture. What was that like, and what was the contribution from those who actually lived this story?
A film is obviously an interpretation based on real events. It will definitely have very little to do with reality because nothing can capture that. A two-hour film is by itself a medium that puts together things that happen over a scope of years. In that sense, it is manipulative, but you surrender to that fact, the same as you surrender to the fact that if I ever play a person that killed someone in a film, I surrender to the fact that I never have killed someone.
What is that like? F**king hell, I don't know. So there's a series of things which expose the fact that we are actors and this is what we do. It is the reinterpretation of interpretation of interpretation. What we end up doing is empathizing emotionally with the journey of the characters and building up, creating a character that is going to be completely different from the real person.
Perhaps with similar rational motivations, with a certain rational journey, but at the end of the day, it is the emotional empathy that carries across and that's where we bond together. It becomes universal. I would ask Maziar about his life in Iran or Shohreh or Golshifteh and many other people from Iran that I know, those were details that would help me construct or help myself. In the end, there is a lot of me put into it. But I surrender to the fact immediately that I am from Mexico, I am not from Iran. I can never even identify because I've never been in such a situation, but the only thing I can do is emotionally empathize with him.
Witnessing torture on film is hardly new, yet this film takes a very different tact both visually and in terms of your performance.
It was a very particular situation, what Maziar went through and his torture was a complete oxymoron, but it was a sophisticated torture. Solitary confinement is an institutionalized torture which occurs all over the world, which deprives the prisoner of the feeling that somebody cares for him. By doing that, you deconstruct and build a person. This technique of torture in a way provides the torturers the possibility of finding a person that is guilty even though he isn't.
This construction of finding people who are guilty of something is quite interesting, because the film deconstructs this idea that these institutionalized power structures are built upon having to have enemies. They need enemies and they need to put them across and to show them. If they're not enemies, they're someone who they can really bring to their knees by asking the most complicated questions. They develop these mechanisms to suppress that and to legitimize their power.
In the case of Iran, in the case of this film, they had to find someone who was guilty of something for them to say, "See, we're not crazy!" There's this guy who's the head of the Western media and is trying to do a velvet revolution here, and he's a spy for Newsweek and the CIA as if they were the same. Like Maziar says, Newsweek is not even relevant. On the other hand, you get similar structures of saying this person is pointing out something that we don't want to be put across, and we have to persecute them. I love this about narrative consequences because it really pushes an issue that we're questioning a lot. It shows that banality of torture, the complete and absolute ridiculousness of it.
The surrealism of it.
The surrealism, yeah. It has humouristic consequences as well because Maziar was able to find a horizon through the humour. Through that funny spiritual game he played of talking to himself, talking to his his deceased father, it also pulls across the issue that is the dangerous question. There is that thing: a little kid can grab a camera and put everything to its knees, but at the same time, there is that really interesting aspect which is quite complicated to debate.
What was your experience like working with Jon, especially as this was his directorial debut?
Well, Jon has been doing his show for many years, and he's got the ability and the experience to work with many people at the same time, to work on a project and save the day. it wasn't like any other first-director experience I've ever been in because he knew how to handle this.
At the same time, because he's so experienced, he knew his limitations as a director, so he put his trust in us and in the cinematographer, the assistant director, the actors. We would just play around. That's what makes him a good director, knowing his limitations. I think Jon is such a nice guy, and intelligent in a broad sense of the word.
Was there something he did as a director that surprised you, that you hadn't seen in another director before?
Yeah, he made perhaps one of the most comfortable shoots I've had among the most difficult circumstances. There was a lot of trust, where I tried out things, thinking that Jon was there to say either this was wonderful, it works, let's use it, or this was s**t, we're not going to use it, but it was my fault. Silly directors think they can solve the movie for me, that [their work] is so brilliant that you have to act it out. Oh, you cannot do it? You're not capable of it, really? It's like f**k, you cast me in this. And by the way, if it's unactable it's because you wrote it really badly.
There are directors that think like that, but Jon is completely different. He works in a completely different direction. He's like it's not working, let's see why it's not working, let's find it out, we can change it. He's a good director.
"Rosewater" opens in theatres on November 14.
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