Zero Dark Thirty: Takes You Inside the Search

Zero Dark Thirty does not begin visually. Unlike The Hurt Locker, director Kathryn Bigelow's last film, there is no prophetic quote to orient us to the mindset of the characters we're about to witness, nor is there a striking image that boldly declares the film's mission or agenda. The film instead begins with an echo.

 A crescendo of 9-11 calls enter and overlap as frantic voices plead for help. Operators attempt to keep the callers calm as they talk about the heat overwhelming them and the smoke surrounding them. Like lost travelers blindly fumbling for companions in the dark, all we have to orient us to the darkness are memories of panic as a title appears on the screen:

September 11, 2001

Letting the imagination of the audience fill in for implied horror is a simple but old technique that filmmakers have been utilizing for years to great effect. The subtle yet effective reminder of the catalyst of what's been called "The Greatest Manhunt in History" serves as both a persistent background reminder of what's at stake for the parties involved in Zero Dark Thirty as well as a moral and ethical litmus test by which to judge the means that get them to the end.

Two years after 9/11, our tolerance for justice is immediately challenged as we witness the first day on the job in Pakistan for CIA officer Maya (Jessica Chastain). Her acclimation to the day in, day out workflow of her new position entails accompanying fellow agent, Dan (Jason Clarke), into a cell on a top secret black site where a prisoner named Ammar (Reda Kateb) is being held for information extraction. Beatings, water boarding and sleep deprivation are just a few of the tactics attempted in order to get Ammar to cough up information on a Saudi terrorist group with alleged ties to Osama Bin Laden.

Maya seems at first uncomfortable with the prisoner abuse, barely able to watch as Ammar is stripped naked, unable to cover the fact that he's soiled himself after being forced into some semblance of standing for 96 straight hours. "Your friend is an animal," he chokes out to her. "Help me, please." After a pause, she responds coldly with: "You can help yourself by being truthful." Perhaps the voices of the 9/11 calls are still echoing in her mind as well. The prisoner eventually cracks and sets Maya on the impossible search.

Days, months, years go by, and Maya's naivety and innocence gives way to a cold determinism bordering on vengeance. The body's natural inclination is to collapse, to give in, to quit—but she cannot. There is more at stake than just her being able to sleep peacefully at night. Yet always in the back of our minds are the echoes of those 9/11 calls. 3000 lives were lost on that day with the death toll rising daily. Are those voices on the 9/11 call what keeps Maya going and are they enough of a reason to justify the screams of drowning prisoners?

Zero Dark Thirty will stir debate for years to come. The film's story purports that torture was not just par for the course, but a vital cog in the information gathering wheel that rolled into the backyard of Osama Bin Laden's hidden fortress. Acting CIA Director Michael Morell has issued a statement claiming historical inaccuracy. Were he a filmmaker, he'd no doubt classify it as suspension of disbelief.

Does it matter if torture was or wasn't used en route to capturing Bin Laden? Let's let the historians debate that. More relevant to the complaints levied against Zero Dark Thirty is the question of whether or not the film is anti- or pro-torture? It's seemingly both and neither at the same time. Like many great artists, Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal have constructed their piece as a Rorschach test for the viewer, simply piecing together significant happenings with the glue of creative liberty and letting the viewers bring their own baggage and inherent judgments to it. I suppose some could argue that if there is no historical legitimacy to the use of torture, then its mere inclusion would connote a sense of wish fulfillment or admiration for its theoretical effectiveness. But to assume a pro stance would also assume a glorification and I would challenge anyone to find glory in the mise-en-scene of a naked, bound prisoner who has been shown to have shit himself.

It would be a shame if, years from now, the baseless controversy is still Zero Dark Thirty's primary identifier, as focusing on imaginary issues would distract from one of the year's best films. Returning to the same war that spurred The Hurt Locker also sees Bigelow's returning to the form that made that film so intense, alternating between scenes of emotional wringing and unbearable tension that act as both cause and effect for each other. Chastain's performance throughout the film is understated yet perpetually evolving, always leaving a little bit of room to wonder if Maya is an active participant in her development or if she is being unwillingly molded by the world-altering events to which she bears witness.

These events, forever captured in Zero Dark Thirty, may not be 100% accurate, but they don't have to be. Art does not need to duplicate life, but to imitate it instead. Similar to what David Fincher did two years ago with The Social Network, Kathryn Bigelow has blended reality and fiction together into a piece that will be timeless because of how it spoke to the important issues of its time and place.