Zero Dark Thirty

       I don’t know if I only liked the movie or loved it ... I would have definitely loved it if it had made a short «why» story : the origins of al Qaida, etc, and if it had been a bit more nuanced about some of the bad guys. We don’t see much of the ones who are «grey», of why and how someone becomes a terrorist, I mean, on the psychological side, the TV series Homeland is somewhat better. Even though both movie and series continues in associating everything oriental with potential danger in a neo-orientalistic way, but then, the subject doesn’t give much choice, and the movie is really good, I have to admit, even taking into account criticisms.

Really good because you see the evolution and some of the dark side of the good guys : the first half hour is basically a torture scene conducted by americans on an alleged terrorist guy, and I heard it caused quite a stir in the US, showing that sometimes good guys can look a lot like the bad ones ... It gives a realism that is really welcomed (in my opinion), and that’s what makes the movie really good for me. And the last hour is thick with suspense, even though everyone knows how it ends, I have been rarely that open-mouthed, you even recognize the house (if you read newspapers back at the time when news broke out Bin Laden was dead), it’s like seeing the «hunt» in live, and it doesn’t hide anything : the blood, the shootings (men, women, kids), and finally, the shooting of the one we’re all waiting for. 
Even though it does raise the question : why did they kill him him instead of capturing him and interrogating him and present him to the international court to face justice ... ? Was there something, some knowledge that needed to be "erased" ?

And nothing pompous, no usual scenes of great congratualions, barely a «yay» by one of the army guys, we don’t even see the president or the famous «emergency room» (I don’t recall of it’s the exact name) where they were all following the events. We just see the intelligence woman who pushed for the track for years confirming that they got the right guy, and then we see her in a military plane, supposedly taking her back home. But she’s unknown even to the military transporting her, forever anonymous, and she sits down alone there, and literaly breaks down for the first time, and cry. And the movie ends like that. I thought it was the most awesome end you could give for such a movie. Because you can interpret it by many ways, and the whole thing is so realistic. 

        I understand why it might be disturbing, for those who have a Disney view of war stuff in a way or the other. This realistic touch reminded me of «The Kingdom», a movie that I really liked too about a FBI mission in Saudi arabia, where the first ten minutes and the end where terribly efficient and so, a bit scary too.

        Last comment : how come they don't get actors some foreign words pronunciation courses ? Both there and in Homeland, I didn't see a single actor saying an arabic name in a decent way, if not a good and proper arabic accent (but I won't ask that much). Their characters are supposed to have spent years studying arab suspects, if not learn a bit of arabic along the way (thank god most of the bad guys are perfectly bilingual !) ... It's not credible if at the end of all those years the main character still says "abou Akmed" with an insecure flexing about the "k", as if she still doesn't know if it's the proper way, instead of something close to the arabic "abou Ahmed".

Update : I just got a very different point of view of the movie, rather very negative, and it had some good points. I am a too lenient public, and since I don't know anything about Pakistan, I overlooked a lot of things, even though even I could have said that people speaking in arabic in Pakistan is pretty much totally stupid. And that for people who know the place, most of the sets and scenes are utterly fantaisist, as compared to the reality.
I'd really like to know what Jack G. Shaheen (author of "Reel bad arabs") has to say about this movie ...

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Donc, le fameux film qui parle de la chasse à Ben Laden ... Très efficace, même si j’y ajouterai mes habituelles critiques (manque de nuance sur les «méchants», comment, pourquoi devient-on terroriste, qu’est-ce qu’un terroriste, l’association systématique de tout ce qui est oriental à «danger potentiel» même si le sujet ne peut guère laisser place à un autre point de vue, le manque d’info sur les origines d’al Qaida etc ...).

Au final, j’ai aimé, ne serait-ce que par la dose de réalisme que la réalisatrice a mis là dedans : la première demi-heure est à peu près une scène de torture, menée par les américains sur un terroriste reconnu mais de «petite échelle». Donc ça explose dès l’entrée l’image des bons toujours bons (paraît-il que ça fait du bruit outre atlantique). Ca replace les choses en contexte : en ce qui concerne l’aspect des méthodes et des pratiques, il n’y a plus tellement de différence entre les uns et les autres, ça réduit tout à une «simple» histoire de vengeance, ce qui donne un autre aspect à cette chasse à l’homme.

Sur le plan cinématographique, je ne suis pas experte, mais la dernière heure était terriblement efficace, j’ai rarement été aussi prise de suspense, alors même qu’on connait tous la fin. Et la caméra n’épargne rien, le sang, beaucoup de monde tué (hommes, femmes et enfants, et un seul armé), ça ne s’est clairement pas fait dans la dentelle ...
          Et bien sûr ça renforce la question : pourquoi l'avoir tué alors qu'il était facile de le prendre vivant, et le poursuivre en justice, etc ... ? Y avait-il donc quelque chose à cacher, vite fait bien fait, pouf avec un balle dans la tête ?

Et la fin, une des plus belles fins de cinéma que j’ai vu : la femme qui mène la traque depuis le début arrive vers le corps, atteste que c’est bien lui, Oussama, l’objet de son boulot depuis des années, et on la voit repartir dans un avion militaire, sûrement de retour pour les Etats-unis, mais elle est seule, inconnue même des militaires qui la transportent, hors du cercle rapproché dont elle faisait partie personne ne la connaît, boulot de services secrets oblige. Et elle s’assoit dans l’avion, et craque, pour la première fois depuis le début, et se met à pleurer. Et on sait pas très bien pourquoi, les interprétations peuvent être multiples tout autant qu’évidentes. Et pouf, générique de fin. Par de grandiloquence à l’américaine habituelle, de scènes de drapeaux et de festoiement, on ne voit pas même le président ou la fameuse pièce où ils regardaient tous l’opération en direct qu’on a tant vue en photo dans les journaux. On voit l’opération, effectivement, comme si on était, la fin, et l’agent qui pleure. Sobriété réaliste qui fait vraiment du bien, et qui me fait rappeler «The Kingdom», qui termine dans le même genre, avec une fin assez mémorable (et un début très informateur et essentiel, le début qui manque à Zero Dark Thirty au final).

       Dernière remarque : des cours de prononciation de mots étrangers pour les acteurs, s'il vous plaît ! Que ce soit là ou dans la série Homeland, des personnages qui sont sensé avoir bossé des années sur des suspects arabes et voire même, avec un peu de chance - ce serait pertinent -, avoir appris un peu d'arabe, et qui ne sont pas foutu de prononcer les noms correctement ? Sans demander un bel accent arabe, au moins quelque chose de cohérent et d'approchant. L'héroïne passe tout son temps à dire "abou akmed" au lieu d'un simple "ahmed" (pourtant plus simple, le h inspiré en anglais ... ce n'est pas le h arabe, mais c'est plus proche qu'un k!), le tout en ayant jamais l'air trop sûre se savoir s'il faut effectivement prononcer ce k ou pas ... En tous cas globalement, heureusement que tous les méchants parlent eux parfaitement anglais et comprennent tout ce qu'on leur dit ... !

Update : Je viens d'avoir un compte rendu du film très différent du mien, et très pertinent dans ses critiques ... Je suis trop bon public et pas du tout spécialiste du Pakistan, donc beaucoup de choses m'ont échappé. Le fait par exemple que tout le monde parle arabe. Au Pakistant c'est une bonne blague. Ou que beaucoup des scènes et décors (ambassade américaine, etc ...) sont tout à fait invraisemblables, pour qui connaît le terrain.

How to Avoid Being Killed In a War Zone

       «How To Avoid Being Killed In a War Zone : the essential survival guide for dangerous places» by Rosie Garthwaite.

The title in itself made me buy the book as soon as I saw it (or rather, as soon as I got the money). And I just recieved it, and took five minutes in my crazy schedule to go through it and I loved it at first glance : it is precisely what the title suggest. Not a novel, not a collection of events, just a heap of info and counsel to deal with about every subject and incidents one might encounter in the everyday life of someone who happen to live in a war zone (not only journalists, even if the book seem to be directed primarily at them).

This has been written by a war reporter working for Al Jazeera (the english version I suppose), and she interviewed a great many others to complete the book as best as possible ... which seem pretty true at this first glance. I can’t wait the end of exams to read it. 

It is the crazy book of the month, the book that make me remember one of my dreams, to become a war reporter. Traveling to Israel-Palestine made me realize that it could be a great job for me. 

I discovered there that something almost inocuous and traditional in my home country that is peaceful demonstrations, could mean death elsewhere, even if you didn’t break any laws whatsoever. During this afternoon when the group made of «internationals» (including me), israelis and palestinians got shot at and chased by the israeli army, and that « we were lucky because two of us got only midly injured that day and no-one was killed», I never felt so much that this was where I was supposed to be, with the desire to tell afterwards what I saw to anyone who cared. Or didn’t, for that matter. 

      I wasn’t even scared, and that got me thinking for a long time about my sanity : simple situations in life can stress the hell out of me, like taking the bus or buying a bread at the bakery, but weird things and out-of-the-usual situations (for a low-middle class westerner) make me feel almost relaxed, and I can deal with them with a clear mind.

Anyway, I’m curious about reading this book, the reading of which sounds like fun in itself ... I hope to review it very soon, meanwhile, there’s this article.

"كيف تتجانب أن تُقتل في منطقة حربية"

كتاب من صحفية انكليزية عملت لقناة الجزيرة (بالانكليزية على ما أعتقد) والعنوان جعلني أشتريه مباشرة ... واحد من أحلامي أن أصبح صحفية في مناطق حربية منذ رحت الى فلسطين شفت الواقع هناك. ويظهر أن الكتاب يعالج أي موضوع الحياة يمكنك أن تفكر به حتى المواضيع لن تفكر فيها قبل أن تعيشها في حياة يومية وسط الحرب. فأنتظر نهاية دراساتي بعد أشهر حتى أقرأ ذلك لكتاب وأقدم رأيّ فيه ...

La prudence des saints

(extrait de "Sublimes paroles et idioties de Nasr Eddin Hodja", éditions Phébus Libretto - un des nombreux ouvrages existant en plusieurs langues sur ce personnage légendaire du moyen orient, le mollah Nasr Eddin, connu pour les histoires drôles ou bizarres dont il est le sujet et/ou l'objet)

     Nasr Eddin se rend à la mosquée pour la prière, mais au lieu de laisser ses sandales à l'entrée, il les prend avec lui et les cache sous son djubbé, car on les lui a déjà volées deux fois.

     Le kateb remarque tout de suite ce renflement suspect :

- Nasr Eddin, arrêt ! Que caches-tu donc là ?

- C'est un livre sacré.

- Peux-tu m'en dire le titre, s'il te plaît ?

- Il s'appelle la Prudence des saints.

- La prudence des saints ? Je n'ai jamais entendu parler de ce livre-là ...

- Oh ! Ca ne m'étonne pas, repartit le Hodja : c'est un livre qu'on ne trouve que chez le coordonnier.

My thing with men clothing in Arab countries

Something I don’t usually talk about - clothes - although I pay a great deal of attention to the way people dress anywhere I might be, and I also am quick to critizise the way they dress too, because I have a weird but very definite taste about what fits who and how ... Unless, of course, the person gets the real secret of looking good : being confident with what you wear, whatever it is. Make the others believe the clothes you’re wearing are exactly what you wanted to wear and the look you have is exaclty the one you wanted to get (even if it’s not). That’s one of my hidden cliché-french sides for you then.

All that aside, for years I’ve been evaluating traditional and modern clothing in all the places I have visited for what they look like in general by people wearing them (regardless of the bad or good exceptions on individuals), and after all those years the first place for the best looking clothes ever, for both men and women, is always occupied by the same ones : for women, the indian sari, of which I will speak in a future post. And for men ... The traditional and modernized-traditional arabian dress, the stuff that includes most of the time now :

• the white thawb / thobe / kandura / dishdasha / etc: the arabic names for this long white dress as seen on the Gulf princes on TV.
• the black overcoat or bisht. 
• the keffieh / shimagh / etc : it seems they had a ton of different names according to the region for the head-dress.
• the iqal : the (usually) black cord that keeps the latter set on the head.

Knowing that if we take old orientalist paintings and old pictures taken in arab countries into account, the clothes were much more colorful and with more variations in the past (and in my opinion, even more beautiful ... Seriously, what’s better than a well-wrapped turban ? Some of the afghan people were well-minded to keep that style). Nowadays it pretty much goes down to the above elements with few variations : white, black, possibly creme and brown for the bisht, and red or black checkered keffiehs. Sometimes I even saw a wild grey thobe or even a black one ... I guess it is due both to modernization, like everywhere in the world everyday things and clothes tend to become simplified, and also maybe to the wahhabisation of clothes : getting rid of anything that might appear ostentatious or too rich (colours, extravagant patterns, gold threads everywhere, etc). I would have prefered seeing more diversity but well, I can’t say the black and white simple stuff doesn’t have its own charm, since it is still n°1 on my list !

Why is it my favorite ? I can’t really say. I just know that in my eyes even the ugliest guy could attain some sort of class by just wearing it. I think most of people say that of an Armani costume or something western and expensive well-known brands. So if the guy wearing it is handsome ...

Everything in these clothes fascinate me : the moves like old greek statues’ drapes and the swoosh-sounds given by the movements, the fabric, the cut, the differents ways of wearing it. I have the same sort of fascination for my favorite haute-couture designer, Jean Paul Gaultier, but the arabian clothes have the advantage of not wanting to be fashionable at all.

It might also be that my totally subjective tastes makes me say that arabic is the most beautiful language of the world (even though I also like the sound of anything from italian to pashto, or any semitic languages, but if you want me happy, you’d better talk in arabic, preferably with oriental dialects), and that my own personal prototype of prince charming is definitely arab-looking, but still ... Way before learning a single word of arabic or knowing anything about middle eastern cultures, foreign clothes fascinated me, especially the oriental ones. Proof of my almost objective tastes in clothing is that, not knowing anything about indian culture, I still maintain that the indian sari is the best for women ( followed in second by arabian abayas and other women robes, yes, I admit. And middle-age european costumes, definitely.)

And I wonder why I am quite alone in having this fascination for arabian clothes. I actually bought in Jerusalem, for a cheap price, a white thobe and a black bisht, the vendor must have wondered why I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the clothes hanging with others by his little shop’s door and why I didn’t even bother haggling at all before buying it, but he saw me walking away with my bundle quite happy ... It just hangs there in my dressing among my other (wearable) clothes, with no use in perpesctive at all, but it makes me happy, looking at it from time to time.

The other day I was roaming inside the university library, in the usual part of it (arab world) where whole shelves ar dedicated to arabian gulf countries, and reading through some article I discovered that this dress was imposed on men quite the same way the black abayas are on women (sometime maybe to a lesser extent, but still), and it suggested that if some sort of revolution were to happen in these countries, this imposition might well be broken and most of the guys would start wearing western clothes, the way they all do when they have the choice ... And reading that made me so sad. I am deeply upset by this stupid cultural westernization of the world. How can you trade something so classy and comfy at the same time, the thobe, for something so average and not comfy at all like blue jeans and shirt ? (I tried the women version of both and the comparison doesn’t stand : the first one is definitely better on all sides). Just because some singer wears it in some stupid song ?

       Another awful thing I saw in my travels in the arab world (outside gulf countries) is this tendency of men, when they want to appear "serious", "responsible" or classy or something, to dress with particularly ugly western outfits. It's like watching a old TV series with out-of-fashion clothes with ugly colours and patterns. Or like my university professors. A university professor in France, especially in the languages department, just don't get it, they must live so outside of the normal world that they got stuck in the 70's or the 80's or something. White shirt, black pants, black coat, that's the minimum to look O.K. Forget the brown, the patchy, the weird grandpa patterns. And in the arab world they worsen it with the mustache. I can't abide with the mustache ... A beard is way better (I won't stress it enough), or even nothing, but why in the world would anyone want to wear a mustache ?

I can only hope that the «hype» sort of things will get more multicultural and world-level, instead of only western based, so that some guys on this planet will keep wearing beautiful clothes out of choice ... and women beautiful ones too. And slims are not among them in my book, except on very particular occasions. 

P.S. : I just read that interesting article about the UAE "national dress" ... It does have mysterious powers !

أكتب هنا عن حبي للملابس العربية خاصة الملابس الرسمية في الخليج  (الثوب والبشت وكل ذلك ولها أسماء مختلفة حسب المنطقة فلا أعرفها كلها ... ) والملابس التقليدية في العالم العربي. أفكر أن الملابس الخليجية هي الأكثر جميلة على الرجال مقارنا لأي ملابس أخرى وكذلك أن الساري الهندي هو الاكثر جميل على النساء دون أي ملابس آخر.

سأحاول أن أترجم كل ذلك قيما بعد, بعد الامتحانات. ولكن يجب أن يعرف العرب أن ملابسهم أفضل وأجمل بكثير من ملابسنا البلهاء في الغرب, وهذا رئي كفتاة غربية التي عاشت في الأردن والتي شافت النوعين (الذين مع الثوب والذين مع الجينز)