In 2009, after the Iranian people’s favorite contender for the president, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, lost in a landslide to radical conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, chaos ensued. The period that followed became one of the most important in Iranian history. The Green Revolution took the streets by storm, and protests and demands for a recount followed.
Both the citizens of Iran and the militia used violence as a tactic. Among the outraged citizens, Maziar Bahari filmed the events as they unfolded. A young Iranian journalist from Canada, Bahari made a name for himself by becoming one of Newsweek’s most respected journalists. He was entrenched in Iran for quite some time and knew the dangers that came with the job, especially when reporting from the Middle East. But nothing could have prepared him for what was to come.
In Jon Stewart’s debut film as director and screenwriter, “Rosewater,” Bahari’s memoir “Then They Came for Me” is brought to life as the film follows Bahari through his four months in prison on false accusations of espionage, caused in part by an interview Bahari gave on Stewart’s show in 2009.
Bahari said he trusted Stewart with his script because of his political instinct on “The Daily Show,” a show Bahari said he had been a fan of since its beginning.
“When I went on the show after my release and we became friendly, we talked about a film,” he said. “We started looking for a writer, we were looking for an experienced director, and unfortunately all those people were busy or they were not working for the amount of money that was available. So after a couple of years, Jon said forget about it — let’s do it ourselves.”
Stewart wrote the script. Behari said that after six months and “a lot of emotional investment,” Stewart did not want to hand it over to another person and decided to direct it himself.
And what a decision that was. Everything from the casting to the location scouting made the film authentic and help put into perspective exactly what Bahari went through.
Bahari said much of the dialogue in the film came directly from his book, but the atmosphere of terror and despair created through the filming can be attributed to Stewart’s direction and vision. Gael García Bernal, who plays Bahari in the film, emphasized his sense of humor throughout the entire film, which is still present in Bahari today despite his experiences.
When speaking about the absurdity of his accusation, Bahari jokingly talked about some of the odd connections his captors would make against him.
“The icing on the cake was (when they connected me) to Pauly Shore,” he said. “They said that Pauly Shore was a spy — but maybe he is, I don’t know. We haven’t been able to communicate with Pauly.”
The jokes and the lightheartedness in the film are something that only Stewart and Bahari could tastefully pull off. Beyond that, the film is one focused around love for family and culture.
Bahari said that in the darkest moments, the memory of his late sister and father gave him the strength to push through. And although the experience is terrifying Bahari accepts the fact that it has changed him for the better.
“Since I’ve come out, I think I’ve tried to do more things than before,” he said. “The richer life you’ve had, the better you can survive in any difficult circumstance because you have a richer inner resource that you can tap into and use in those difficult situations.”
“Rosewater” opens in theaters on Nov. 14.