On Sunday I drove 50 miles to the big city (Roanoke, Virginia) to see “Rosewater,” a movie based on the experiences of the Iranian-born journalist Maziar Bahari as he covered the beginning of the 2009 Green Revolution and underwent 118 days of solitary confinement, endless interrogation and brutal treatment in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison as an alleged spy.
The film, written and directed by Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show,” is a moving (and sometimes funny) reminder of a moment in recent history when it seemed that the suffocating grip of the mullahs on Iran might actually be smashed through the sheer determination of the millions of Iranians who took to the streets in defiance of the regime and its thugs.
“Rosewater” includes footage from a video shot by Bahari in June 2009 of the storming of a paramilitary Basij base in Tehran, in which several demonstrators were killed indiscriminately.
I was especially pleased that when the movie depicted Bahari’s coerced televised “confession”, the microphone of Press TV was clearly visible.
If you were as emotionally caught up in those events as I was, and hope the spark which ignited them still flickers, you should see “Rosewater.”
