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Guantanamo Trap, The
Thomas Selim Wallner (Canada/Germany/Switzerland, Canadian Spectrum)
Friday, Apr 29, 9:30 p.m.
The Royal Cinema (608 College Street)
Monday, May 2, 1 p.m.
TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King Street West)
Saturday, May 7, 9:30 p.m.
The Regent (551 Mount Pleasant Road)
As if the title wasn’t a dead giveaway, The Guantanamo Trap wades valiantly into the mires of the offshore U.S. military prison that has been accused of practicing torture pretty much since it opened its doors in 2002. As one interviewee notes early in the film, “There are no easy answers.” And to his credit, Wallner doesn’t chase them.
Trap focuses on a handful of people differently affected by Gitmo. One of the more candid is Diane Beaver, the U.S. attorney and military officer who drafted the legally spurious interrogation techniques that have drawn such criticism. While her honesty and alleged commitment to “professionalism” is refreshingly frank, Beaver’s testimony doesn’t absolve her (especially when she acts like a hero for giving detainees flu shots they otherwise wouldn’t have received). Likewise, Lt. Commander Matthew Diaz, who famously leaked the names of Guantanamo’s detainees to prominent human rights lawyer Barbara Olshansky, gets a chance to say his piece, explaining how he struggled with reconciling his personal politics with professional expectations (though his careerist impulses also seemed to influence his decision).
Wallner’s film sags in spending too much time pretending to understand Beaver and Diaz’s differently configured notions of patriotism and professional duty. Murat Kurnaz, a German Muslim imprisoned at Gitmo, gets a chance to unburden himself, as do a few other subjects. But for the most part, Guantanamo Trap devotes itself to the higher-profile figures. As a result, while it doesn’t necessarily chase the easy answers, it doesn’t exactly ask any hard questions that we haven’t heard before.