Michael Winterbottom - The Road to Guantánamo (2006)

The Road to Guantánamo, co-directed by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross, is a ferocious, partisan, and moving account of how three young men from Tipton, in the Midlands, ended up in the world's most notorious prison. The film-makers' rage at what happened to their protagonists is palpable, while they are also alert to the absurdity and gallows humour of it all. Nothing in Winterbottom's recent Tristram Shandy movie, A Cock and Bull Story, is as far-fetched as what we see on screen here.
The saga of how the friends set off to a wedding in Pakistan in September 2001 and somehow blundered into the war in Afghanistan has been exhaustively covered in the press. What didn't emerge is just how naive and unlucky they were. The film-makers tell the story using reconstructions with actors, newsreel footage and interviews. At the outset, we hear President Bush solemnly telling the world that the Guantánamo prisoners are "bad guys". Once we meet Ruhel, Asif, Shafiq and Monir, the irony becomes evident. The young Brits Bush seems to regard as the embodiment of evil are ordinary lads, neither especially political not devoutly religious.

As the friends travel through Pakistan, this seems to be shaping up as a road movie. Once they reach Afghanistan, the tone changes. There is no pretence of even-handedness. The film-makers don't skimp on showing the sadism and stupidity of the US and British soldiers. The guards behave with the same cruelty you expect to see from SS officers in lurid second world war movies. It takes a moment or two to realise that these events are based on the testimony of the "Tipton Three", not dreamed up by a screenwriter. There are occasional moments of bombast - the evocation of the Abu Ghraib photos scarcely seems necessary. None the less, The Road to Guantánamo is far more than just agit-prop. In amid the brutality, there is humour and lyricism. This is as much an account of youngsters on "a holiday in hell" as a rant against the obscenity of Guantánamo.