The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair

The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair
Studio: Magnolia
WorkNameSort: Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair, The

This documentary’s Strangelovian title is intriguing but, as we learn, sarcastic. The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair is one of many personal stories to emerge from the fiasco of the U.S. government’s terrorist prisons. We just had The Road to Guantanamo, which chronicled the wrongful imprisonment of the Tipton Three in Guantanamo Bay, and The Prisoner continues in the same vein. Even more Kafka-esque in its absurdity, the film tracks Iraqi journalist Yunis Khatayer Abbas and his two brothers from their inexplicable capture through eight months of living in squalid conditions at Abu Ghraib, and for what?

The U.S. military claims they followed a lead that Yunis was building a bomb in an attempt to assassinate Tony Blair, though no evidence supporting the claim turned up. Nonetheless, Yunis was thrown into Abu Ghraib’s Camp Ganci, the lowest-priority division of the prisons.

The film, directed by Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein (Gunner Palace), is a scathing indictment of the thoughtless, callous, herd-them-up policy that causes America to lose esteem and credibility around the world. It isn’t a matter of the directors siding wholeheartedly with the suspected terrorist, a criticism leveled by some at Michael Winterbottom about The Road to Guantanamo. In fact, there seems to be no defense whatsoever for his imprisonment, judging by the U.S. military official interviewed for the movie and the internal memos leaked to the filmmakers containing phrases like ‘completely innocent.â?�

This shouldn’t be a surprise for anyone closely following the dirty actions of these prisons, but it puts a human face on the harrowing statistics, and a unique face at that. After a critical article about an Iraqi embargo in the late ’90s, Yunis was imprisoned and tortured by Uday Hussein. A photojournalist, Yunis was on the front lines of the U.S. invasion and occupation, documenting the destruction that’s presented here in a beautiful photo essay, which culminates in the tearing down of Saddam Hussein’s statue. While locked up at Abu Ghraib, he continued to be a reporter, documenting the deplorable conditions on underwear and cigarette foils. Not only does Yuris appear to be nonthreatening and anti-Saddam, he seems an essential component in bringing the truth to the Iraqi people.

Tucker and Epperlein spell out this fascinating story with fresh idiosyncrasy. Rather than dramatizing the prison conditions with actors, the filmmakers rely on the style of a graphic-novel translation, adding comic-book pulpiness to a story that sometimes feels like a morbid fantasy.

Yunis is able to laugh about his imprisonment in hindsight, free again to photograph his beloved country. As for the alleged target, it’s safe to say that on his last day of office, Tony Blair isn’t worried about Yunis Khatayer Abbas.

This article appears in Jun 27 – Jul 3, 2007.