Bloody Truth

We wanted Stardust, but it was still on those awkwardly-timed sneak previews, so I said, "Let's ogle Jake Gyllenhaal then," which Eka didn't mind (I don't think she's in the fan club though).

That mission kind of failed, maybe because I was kind of expecting the Donnie Darko of six years past. He didn't shine, but other parts of the movie unexpectedly made up for it.

(Warning for SPOILERS below, by the way.)

Rendition was heavier than I was prepared for. The generally available synopsis led me to think it would be mostly a drama of Reese Witherspoon searching for her disappearing husband (Reese did well on her climactic scene, which affected me quite a bit), plus bits of moral issues that were Jake's share. It didn't register to me that such a theme would of course warrant some disturbing torture scenes.

In retrospect, even if I'd been aware of that, I might have overestimated my capacity to stomach them, considering my past exposure to some gruesome dark manga. I hadn't felt compelled to blog about this movie since I saw it two days ago, until just now in the shower when I was promptly reminded of the waterboarding scene. Static ink on paper surely pales in comparison to live action with a real person.

Throughout the story, the audience was led to conclude that Anwar (the suspect) had been wrongly accused. Never mind the breach to the 'innocent till proven guilty' principle; I went by feelings more than principles, and I sympathized with him just because I knew he wasn't the bad guy.

However, when he finally caved in and confessed, I thought for a moment that he might actually be involved after all, and that the torture had indeed brought out the truth. After all, we couldn't help but acknowledge that Abasi (the 'torturer', another great performance) did operate on fair assumptions when he laid out their findings before Anwar and asked, "Tell me, what do you want us to think?" (Not the exact quote, which I wish I remembered.)

As should have been obvious, though, we did find out later on that Anwar had given a false confession only to avoid further torture, and it was like, fiuh, but still.

You know those Knights and Knaves logical puzzles -- wouldn't it be handy if there were a provable way of determining if someone speaks the truth without a precondition to know what that truth is?

Is it the essence of detective work, after all? Lie detectors have the desirable property (context-free) but not the desirable result (provable). I suspect that in this case we might find these two qualities contradicting each other.

At this point I'm rather tempted to discuss a thought from Tokyo Babylon: "In most cases, we only know the reality of what happened. Not the truth behind it." The original context is an emotional treatment of the issue of manifestation versus motivation; throw in the matters of perspective and interpretation, and it's a whole different topic. Hence, I'll refrain for now.