Jihad Rehab review – eye-opening documentary on a controversial program | Sundance 2022

“Jihad is for youngsters. Now I’m too outdated.”

It’s not precisely the reply you’d like to listen to when asking a supposedly reformed fundamentalist if they’ve an curiosity in rejoining al-Qaida, however it’s higher than nothing. And not less than he’s being sincere.

The absence of absolutes is what’s most enriching in Meg Smaker’s new documentary, Jihad Rehab. The American film-maker had entry to the Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef Middle for Recommendation and Care in Saudi Arabia, the place she adopted the progress of a gaggle of males launched from the US navy jail in Guantánamo Bay, some after practically 15 years. What follows is a heady plunge into restorative justice, thoughts management, and cultural conditioning. It is a film for clever individuals trying to have their preconceived notions challenged.

The ability appears much more like a junior school than a jail, and in between interviews our topics are proven utilizing coloured pencils throughout artwork remedy, studying about this new factor known as Google, or listening to lectures about Freudian psychology at “interpersonal expertise class”. An Islamic scholar explains, in particular phrases, how al-Qaida misinterpreted the teachings of the religion.

Ultimately, these males will probably be let loose. One former graduate named Khalid is proven as a hit story. He has a household and a superb enterprise promoting toy distant management automobiles. He tries to not dwell on his previous as a bomb maker, and admits the deeds of his previous do maintain him up at evening. His heat smile diminishes when he thinks about individuals leaping from the World Commerce Middle towers.

There’s little implication that these are males falsely accused of their crimes. This isn’t Taxi to the Darkish Facet. The movie does supply context, nonetheless, about what younger males like this thought jihad was earlier than they left their properties for Afghanistan. For them, it was becoming a member of a warfare they have been advised was simply. They weren’t terrorists, they have been troopers.

An exception is one member of the group, Ali, who had the misfortune of being the youthful brother of Qasim al-Raymi, the top of al Qaida in Yemen. (Al-Raymi was killed by an American airstrike after the occasions of this movie.) Ali was captured after time spent along with his brother at a coaching facility on the age of 16. If his claims are to be believed, his whole incarceration was because of the US authorities in search of details about his brother, and he himself had by no means accomplished something. However for years at Guantanamo, he denied that they have been even associated.

Questioning simply how a lot to consider these males now isn’t simply cynicism. Smaker doesn’t whitewash one of many rehab’s failures, wherein somebody made it by way of this system basically by mendacity by way of his enamel. As quickly as he was launched, he rejoined a terrorist cell. This proves to be the exception, although, due to some measures put in place.

Graduates of this system want a household sponsor, whom they put susceptible to arrest in the event that they depart the nation. (Arrest in Saudi Arabia, it bears repeating, isn’t normally a slap on the wrist.) Nadir, a former Osama bin Laden bodyguard, is vouched for by a cousin too younger to have ever recognized him earlier than Guantánamo. “They misplaced two buildings, we misplaced two nations,” he says in regards to the 9/11 assaults with a shrug, and says he, too, felt the decision to jihad when he was youthful however his mom hid his passport.

Circumstances change for everybody as Saudi Arabia’s political winds shift when Mohammad bin Salman assumes management in mid-2017. Launch schedules are halted, then life is made tough when work restrictions are positioned on non-Saudi residents. The graduates are trapped, as the principles stop them from leaving, but they can’t earn a residing. Furthermore, they have been inspired by their spiritual counselor to start out a household as shortly as doable, so now there are mouths to feed.

Smaker doesn’t edit out the completely retrograde angle in direction of girls discovered even on this oasis of progressive prison reform. “Girls age quicker than males,” they’re taught. “Don’t select one near you in age, as a result of in 10 to twenty years she gained’t have the ability to handle you and also you’ll have to marry once more.” When one of many topics grows pissed off at Smaker’s questioning, he confronts her, shouting, “You need to discover a husband, a girl such as you wants kids!” Smaker retains her cool.

Whereas Jihad Rehab has the products by way of material and entry, there are some aesthetic decisions that don’t fairly work. The film doesn’t actually begin for 12 minutes. We’re pressured to take a seat by way of a CNN-like montage that actually had me frightened about what I had gotten into. Then there may be that bane of contemporary documentary, the animation sequence. It’s pointless and cliche. To any documentarians studying, keep in mind that Frederick Wiseman by no means inserted psychedelic line drawings into his work. Let your topics converse, and let your viewers hear.

That stated, this film is a victory, largely as a result of it should frustrate viewers who want the whole lot spoonfed to them.