Oh Cinema: Films for the Trump Years: [T]error

It is tempting for many who lived through 9/11 to see it as a fundamental before/after fulcrum of history, one of those many, many moments where “everything changed” and after which “nothing was ever the same,” on par with Pearl Harbor, or that one time the US beat the Soviets in Olympic hockey. We like to think that the debates about public safety, about the “compatibility” of Islam with “Western culture,” wars launched under false pretenses, and massively expanded government surveillance programs are new things, different and therefore unconnected to the past, extraordinary situations that call for equally extraordinary measures, all in the name of keeping America safe.

Would that it were so simple. Sadly, what a clear-eyed examination of the past 17 years quickly reveals is how decidedly unchanged the US government remains in its approach to confronting perceived dangers to its power, especially in how willing the instruments and agencies ostensibly meant to protect us are to break the very laws meant to ensure our safety.

The number of films, especially documentaries, tackling this subject matter head-on started to grow quickly soon after the launch of the Iraq War, and have only increased since then. The recent works of Laura Poitras, especially her Oscar-winning work in Citizenfour, are of particular note here, but for me, none are as powerfully focused on the domestic side of this as [T]error is, a 2015 documentary by Lyric Cabral and David Sutcliffe. The directors already had a growing interest in how, exactly, the FBI conducts internal investigations into suspected terrorists, when they learned almost by pure chance that a neighbor of Cabral’s named Saeed Torres was a legit, longtime FBI informant.

What is surprising is how openly and freely Torres spoke to them of what you would assume to be tightly controlled, confidential government secrets (he admits he was part of one of the many COINTELPRO sting operations to take down the Black Panther Party). What is shocking is that, when he is called up for another operation targeting a supposed “Muslim extremist,” he invites the filmmakers along to document it without informing his superiors. I highly doubt they were pleased when they found this out.

The result is one of the most stunningly unique and original documentary works yet made, the first-ever documentary that followed an in-progress FBI investigation. In this, Citizenfour remains the closest comparison to the film, at least in the in the literally-watching-history-unfold sense of the term. That novelty alone would have been more than enough to make the film an incredible and worthy watch, but then, in the film’s second half, the filmmakers somehow summon an unimaginable amount of chutzpah and…..you know, I’d really rather not say what happens then, because the turns the case and the film itself eventually take are so wild they deserve to be experienced completely cold.

Ultimately, what the specifics of this particular sting operation reveal are how all the supposed dangers posed by radical Muslims and the War on Terror are not only NOT new, they are the direct and unsullied descendants of the same tired tactics the US government has used time and time again over the course of history to push down minorities it perceives as a threat to its power. This most often takes the form of those in power deciding beforehand what outcome they want, who they want to be guilty, and for what, and all that follows are merely means to make than end “true,” so that they have a reason to lock away someone they were going to do away with anyway. It’s nothing less than petty, kindergarten harassment blown up to fit inside the halls of power in Washington.

While this parallels the experience of pretty much every marginalized group in the country, I found a poetic justice that this particular informant hailed from the COINTELPRO days, because the government’s oppressive response to the Civil Rights movements really does provide the clearest and most direct parallels to official treatment of Muslims (as well as other groups likes immigrants) today. Much of what is at stake remains the same, and the dynamic at play is frighteningly similar; the government perceives mysterious hordes of alien “others” that must be destroyed, yet repeatedly worsens the problem by imagining enemies where there are none, and in some cases create ones that otherwise would never had existed.

Considering the film a few weeks after I first saw it, what I found it most poignant (and saddening) to consider is the person of Torres himself. To hear him tell it, he has been victimized again and again by his friends and family, shunned and outcast even though he is doing good work in service of his country. He truly believes himself to be a patriot doing what must be done to protect his homeland. That he is clearly just one of many pawns of the government being used to finger innocent people is tragic enough on its own, but what adds insult to injury is how clearly he is hung out to dry and left scrambling when his cover is blown, or an operation goes south, or when it’s simply over and the FBI doesn’t need him anymore, so they stop contacting him or sending him money. Ultimately, his greatest wish is the most basic of all; to ensure financial security for his son. And it eventually becomes clear to the filmmakers and the viewers, but never to him, that that can never be. He will never be paid enough on these stings to ever “retire,” and so he must keep returning to the poisoned well whenever the government calls, no matter how many broken relationships litter the path behind him. His life is a microcosm of so many ways in which the implicit promises of this country are dangled before people time and again, only to repeatedly yank them away, to the detriment of all.

-Noah Franc

Previously on Films for the Trump Years:

Part 1- Selma

Part 2- Good Night, and Good Luck

Part 3- 13^th

Part 4- Get Out

Part 5- Chasing Ice/Chasing Coral

Part 6- The Big Short

Part 7- Human Flow

Part 8- Winter’s Bone/Moonlight

Part 9- Black Panther

Part 10- Arrested Development