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PORTSIDE CULTURE

‘I AM GITMO’: AN ENHANCED INTERROGATION OF AN AMERICAN SHAME  
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Carrie Rickey
April 26, 2024
Truth Dig
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_ In “I Am Gitmo,” French director Philippe Diaz recreates the
torture rooms inside the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center. _

'I Am Gitmo', iamgitmo.com

 

Four months to the day after 9/11, on Jan. 11, 2002, the United States
Naval Station in Cuba opened the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center,
known around the world as “Gitmo.” Nearly 800 men and boys, all of
them Muslim, were brought there in handcuffs and shackles.

By designating these “unlawful combatants” as “detainees,” the
Bush Administration obscured the fact that Gitmo is not a detention
center; it’s a prison. Its inmates were never entitled to protection
under the Geneva Conventions. They were interrogated, tortured and
otherwise dehumanized within an inch of their lives, some for as long
as 20 years. Many of the reported “suicides” that took place
inside are believed to have been the result of a a technique known as
dryboarding, which involves stuffing rags down the throats of subjects
to induce asphyxiation. 

In “I am Gitmo,” French filmmaker Philippe Diaz reenacts the
reality of the prison in the style of a documentary procedural. Its
focus is the degrading and shameful treatment of Gamal Sadek, an
Egyptian mujahideen who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan during the
1980s. When the Soviets retreated, he stayed in Kandahar, married and
became a schoolteacher. After 9/11, he was arrested, suspected of
being a member of the Taliban, and a confederate of Osama bin Laden.
One article of evidence used against him is a grainy photograph of bin
Laden surrounded by his men. Using facial recognition techniques,
American intelligence identified Sadek as one of them. In exchange for
bounty money from the U.S., Sadek’s imam also told U.S.
investigators that the Egyptian was involved with the Taliban. When
Sadek pleads innocence, he is tortured. When he maintains silence, he
is tortured even more rigorously. He is routinely denied food and
water. When those techniques fail to yield a confession, Sadek is
subjected to what the Bush administration called “enhanced
interrogation techniques” — another way of saying he was
tortured.  

Its focus is the degrading and shameful treatment of Gamal Sadek, an
Egyptian mujahideen who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan during the
1980s.

Given the powerful emotional charge of the material, it is a shame
that Diaz’s storytelling is so inconsistent. It begins as the
alternating parallel accounts of a U.S. military interrogator John
Anderson (Eric Pierpont), and Sadek (Sammy Sheik), each explaining the
origins of their standoff at the detention center. Due to Sheik’s
commanding and charismatic performance, Sadek swiftly emerges as the
movie’s central figure, a stalwart of faith, victim of mistaken
identity and of overzealous corporal punishment. 

As the interrogator, Anderson is an old-school military man
uncomfortable with the idea that torture will result in confession.
While Anderson finds that “enhanced interrogation” protocols to be
questionable, he does not question the intelligence against Sadek.
While aware of the various ways of how the American military is trying
to make Gitmo detainees confess, never do Anderson or his colleagues
conclude that doing the same thing over and over again while expecting
different results is one definition of insanity.

Dry-boarding. Water-boarding. Sexual abuse. Shoving prisoners’
heads in toilets and repeatedly flushing. Hanging them from meat
hooks. Psychological abuse, such as placing prisoners in coffins and
nailing them shut. Forced feeding. Sensory deprivation. I barely
survived the film’s simulations of this abuse. How did the victims
survive the real thing?

The film takes its title from the prisoners who, bruised and abused,
go on hunger strike and like the followers of the freedom fighter
in ”Spartacus_,” _say to the authorities, “I am Gitmo.” The
film left me shaken and in agreement with the American guard who tells
Sadek, “Many of us feel ashamed about what’s going on here.”
Even if “I am Gitmo” is too narratively choppy to be a great
movie, it is an effective and necessary reminder that after 23-plus
years, Guantanamo is still open. And for that, we should all feel
ashamed.

 
 
"I Am Gitmo" is showing at the Cinema Village, 22 E 12th St, New York,
NY 10003 from Friday April 26 to Thursday May 2, and at
the Laemmle Monica Film Centers, 1332 2nd Street, Santa Monica, CA
90401 from Friday May 3 to Thursday May 9.
RELATED STORIES

* Film
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* Film Review
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* 'I Am Gitmo'
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