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June 22, 2007
Hope in the darkness
Pearl movie continues the journalist's legacy.
KATHARINE HAMER EDITOR
Early in 2002, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl
went to meet a contact in Karachi, Pakistan. He was going after
a story about the so-called "shoe bomber," Richard Reid.
Pearl told his pregnant wife, Mariane, that he might be late for
dinner – and never returned.
As we now know, Pearl spent weeks in captivity before being brutally
murdered by extremists. During his capture, he was accused of being
a spy for both the CIA and Mossad. Although not an observant Jew,
his ethnicity was never something he hid. His final words were,
"My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish ... I am Jewish."
Both Mariane Pearl, also a journalist, and Daniel Pearl's parents
and sisters have devoted their lives since his death to stamping
out hatred and creating cross-cultural understanding. The Pearl
family established the Daniel Pearl Foundation and Mariane Pearl
penned the memoir A Mighty Heart to explain the events and
her husband's legacy to their son, Adam.
The movie version of A Mighty Heart, which hits theatres
this Friday, June 22, reflects the complexities of a world in which
the tentacles of terror are both far-reaching and deeply entrenched.
Director Michael Winterbottom – whose films include The
Road to Guantanamo and Welcome to Sarajevo – employs
his characteristic style here, interweaving archive news footage
with dramatic scenes and mixing regular camera shots with those
filmed using a handheld digital video. The film was shot on location
in India and Pakistan, bringing the viewer into the sticky, chaotic
streets of Karachi with fast-moving, sometimes blurred, images.
The night that Daniel Pearl disappeared and in the weeks following,
Mariane spent at the Karachi home of her husband's Wall Street
Journal colleague, Asra Nomani. It is here than much of the
film's action takes place, beginning with a culture clash even before
Pearl's absence is noted.
"What do the Americans know about Pakistan?" a local journalist
asks at the dinner table, "Afghanistan? Other than bombing
it all over." Nomani is told that she has "a romantic
view of journalism" – perhaps one shared by Pearl himself,
who was warned, upon setting out for his last interview, only to
meet his contacts in a public place. It was a warning he ignored.
Over the course of the film, Nomani's kitchen becomes like a war
room with gathering troops, from the Pakistani police to Daniel
Pearl's editor, John Bussey, his fixer from Islamabad and CIA agents,
all trying to solve the mystery of his whereabouts and to rescue
him before it's too late. In another room, meanwhile, Mariane (played
by Angelina Jolie) is reading a tome on infant care, dreaming about
her life with Daniel.
The film is full of scenes like this: both jarring and ripe with
intimate moments.
As the biggest celebrity in the cast, Jolie tries her best to blend
in but it's hard to truly differentiate her from her real-life role
as a tabloid favorite, with those bouffant lips going after waifish
Third World youngsters. Her French accent also leaves something
to be desired. Dan Futterman, as Danny, is closer to the genuine
article, but the cast's real stand-outs are John O'Hare, as Wall
Street Journal editor Bussey, and Indian actor Irrfan Khan.
Playing Captain, the head of Pakistan's counter-terrorism unit,
Khan exudes a quiet fury as he grills suspects in dingy jail cells
with peeling paint. "If something happens to [Pearl], Pakistan
will get a bad reputation," he tells one.
When something does happen to him, the war room folds as quickly
as it assembled. The policemen and journalists go home, and Mariane
moves to Paris, where she gives birth to her son – but not
before issuing a final statement to CNN. Looking straight into the
camera, she says, "Danny was killed this month, but 10 other
people were killed. And they are all suffering as much as we are."
She was talking about ordinary Pakistanis. But since Daniel Pearl's
death, nearly 230 journalists have also been killed in the line
of duty – a fact that all of the Pearls want us to remember.
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