Writers probably need to be a little bit nuts…

With the explosion of streaming providers clamouring for our attention, it is all too easy to waste endless evenings on sub-standard films. How many of us have shuffled off to bed ruing another precious evening wasted? So when a recommendation comes along I tend to listen and so it was with The Mauritanian.

I tend to enjoy True Stories. As well as feeling educational, it can lend the film more punch and why filmmakers flag always flag this ahead of the movie. Or Based on a True Story – if artistic licence is used.

But the Mauritanian is more bold and assertive and goes with – THIS IS A TRUE STORY.

And what a story it is.

Bleak, hideous, chastening, appalling, tragic, shaming, despicable… any number of words can be used to describe this tale but all of them are insufficient.

Prison dramas have become sub-genre: The Shawshank Redemption, Midnight Express, Escape from Alcatraz, Papillion, Mean Machine, The Green Mile, The Great Escape…

The Mauritanian is a film about the most controversial prison on earth. A story about the 9/11 atrocity and the men held responsible for it in Guantanamo Bay. A prison established in 2002 and where 40 prisoners remain today.

Cuba is on many people’s bucket lists. The romance of Havana and the history of the place not to mention its beauty, climate and endless beaches. But the Mauritanian will do nothing to boost Cuban tourism.

Our ‘hero’ is Mohamedou Slahi (Tahar Ramin) and his incarceration and the unimaginable torture he endures within which he signs a full confession.

“Guilty your honour. Now please stop torturing me.’

Even a limited legal mind like mine can appreciate the redundancy of this statement. That evidence derived by torture is worthless which is the kernel of the film and the morsel of hope that his American lawyer (Jodie Foster) latches on to and eventually prevails with, when a US judge finds Mohamedou innocent after seven years of solitary confinement.

A confinement of unimaginable hardship. In a tiny cell with no natural light and all alone. And including 70 days of what is referred to as ‘special measures’ – a sanitised phrase for torture: sleep deprivation for days in a forced standing position, with strobe lighting and incessant, deafening heavy metal music, interrogators wearing rubber animal masks, simulating sex acts on him, water boarding in his cell and blindfolded from a boat and finally the threat to arrest his mother and bring her to Guantanamo…

And yet his reprieve by the judge is overruled by the President and his 7 years is extended to almost 15 before he is finally released.

Any governments first responsibility is the safety of its citizens – and with such malevolence directed against it – to fly planes in to buildings and kill so indiscriminately – extreme counter measures might be necessary, but watching this film, who would want such a responsibility?

Who would be a politician?

The Mauritanian is a visceral exposure of this. A moral conundrum and contradiction. It is a painful watch. As much a study of human nature and our frailties.

I began to look forward to the epilogue. I hope the filmmakers will provide some closure. A real time update which is captioned and sometimes with photos, which I always appreciate. But in this instance, The Mauritanian excels itself, providing not only a conclusion and update but by including home video footage, the director (Kevin McDonald – How I Live Now) provides almost a short film within his movie and it is most welcome.

We learn that Mohamedou has since married – to an American lawyer and also that he has written a book about his experiences. Fifteen years of very hard time.

In the footage, we see him smiling and appearing remarkably well adjusted. And then we see his book.

His worldwide best-selling book.

He proudly shows the camera editions in various foreign languages. English,  Arabic, Danish…

And speaking of human nature and the point of this blog…

Having watched his excruciating hardship and forfeiting his freedom for fifteen long years – to then see his upside of penning a worldwide hit book…

For a fleeting moment, I felt envious of him.

Just imagine…

To write a book that is translated and read across the world. The lucky bastard. And I  start to make a calculation…

Would I endure 15 years…

Ridiculous, I know and yet I am afraid, it gets worse…

Because going to bed with Mohamedou’s story in my mind and my warped creative logic, I managed to see other parallels between us.

Because speaking of pain?

With the thousands of hours I’ve spent writing, all alone (solitary confinement) – producing eight books and none of them even a mild hit in the UK, let alone the world, what is this experience if not painful…

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This year I will complete my 8^th and 9^th books – and with them this pain is likely to continue but I enjoy trying to defy the odds.