The scrannel of 911 calls that bombard the audience as we stare at a black screen reminds us how the hunt for Usama bin Laden began. Imminent victims sob on the line as operators beg them to remain calm despite desperate pleas from the suffering that they “are burning up.”
It’s difficult to sit for the first forty-five seconds and not grip the armrests, knowing the fates of people whose fear-filled voices occupy the sight and sound of the theater. These moments are tense, and Bigelow hardly lets up from here.
The very next scene in Zero Dark Thirty finds a man in a dark, dank, dirty room. His wrists are bound with rope connected to the ceiling. If he sits, he suffocates, so he stands, something that takes more energy than he has – most of it having been beaten out of him. ZDT does not elide torture. Our man is visibly cut, swollen, and stitched. At times, he’s kept in a dark room with loud thrash music playing. He is disoriented. He is sleep-deprived. He is sexually humiliated, leashed like a dog, and folded into a box that’s half his size.
At the same time, Zero Dark Thirty – despite criticism toward it – does not endorse or condone torture. It acknowledges that it exists, which is admirable. It could have easily skirted the issue, but this film’s objective is not to be selective. It’s about process. It’s about ten years of searching, following poor leads, making mistakes, and discovering success – often through chance.
With torture, Bigelow looks at the pre-Abu Ghraib war on terror. It illustrates our fluctuating humanity. It suggests that the “good guys” can be evil and contradictory. It also suggests that torture didn’t lead directly to USB (Usama bib Laden). If it did, he would have been discovered well before 2011. The film admits that torture uncovered a name, but this name wasn’t easily Googled or its location Mapquested. The various tangents that sprung from the name, for the most part, ended futilely – at times with tragic results.
Intertwined with this futility is the progression of Maya (Jessica Chastain), a CIA operative recruited out of high school whom “Washington” calls “a killer,” and whose entire career has revolved around the hunt for bin Laden. Here, Zero Dark Thirty flirts with diving into the depths of loneliness, workaholism, and isolation in such serious fields, but it doesn’t, not really. It alludes to these moments but each attempt to closely examine Maya is interrupted by an act of terror. These moments, whether they are depictions of the London bus bombing, the Marriott bombing in Islamabad, or the suicide bombing of CIA agents in Afghanistan, are well-crafted and are intended to show that Maya’s life can either be focused on the manhunt or social. It can’t be both and end well. Those who try to mix don’t fare well.
In Maya, we see the psychological endangerments of being in the role of interrogator and investigator. At first, she is meek and timid. Her partner, Dan (Jason Clarke), is initially enforcer who questions the aforementioned prisoner. Her hands are intertwined. Her eye contact is sparse and her note to the prisoner that he will escape punishment if he’s “truthful” is less a command and more of a suggestion or piece of good advice.
As time passes and more attacks are planned, these characteristics fade and her voice becomes stern. Her words brief. Her intonation blunt.
It’s hard to imagine that Bigelow, whose last film The Hurt Locker garnered both Best Director and Picture Oscars, needed to improve. However, moments in The Hurt Locker dragged a bit. Most were tense, some were overkill. In addition, the movie lasted about ten minutes longer than it should have and presumed the audience didn’t glean the heavy metaphors with which the film was laden. But, Zero Dark Thirty avoids these weaknesses. It is tight. It is pithy. Ironically so since the hunt took ten years. But Bigelow handles each moment with confidence and meticulousness.
The moments that might win Bigelow a second Best Director Oscar are the final twenty minutes. Providing you haven’t read a newspaper in the last year, or, potentially are a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, this won’t be a spoiler, but S.E.A.L Team 6 successfully infiltrates the compound and assassinates bin Laden.
We know this is coming, yet these minutes are absolutely riveting, because Bigelow uses time as her conceit. Dozens upon dozens of articles were written on the process and steps used to locate bin Laden before May 2, 2011. However, the assassination itself was most often breezed over. Perhaps this is because of tact or taste, not wanting to glamourize a death, regardless of his nefariousness. Regardless of the reason, Bigelow takes us through the steps in real time. There was no storming of the fortress. No S.E.A.L member sprinted up the steps, killed America’s Most Wanted and leapt in victory. The entry, the process, the various killings were planned and methodical.
This is not a Schwarzenegger movie.
Much like she did in The Hurt Locker, Bigelow creates a tense realism and eliminates the urge to cheer. Three men and two women died that night. Others were wounded. We know they aided and abetted bin Laden, and this implicates them in harboring a fugitive, but Zero casts a sympathetic yet knowledgeable eye on the children left behind. It’s not accompanied by melodramatic crescendos, just passing glances and a reminder that you don’t know how bad your life is perceived if it’s the only one you’ve ever known.
We aren’t told where Maya will go now that her work is done and bin Laden is dead. We only know that we can go home.
