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However, Burns' depiction of the experiences of the Saudi-born Palestinian, whose birth name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, is harrowing but superficial. Zubaydah is simultaneously portrayed as a one-dimensional villain and a nondescript punching bag for the CIA. This causes an empathy gap to develop between him and the viewer, who cannot possibly identify with the visceral trauma the camera is forcing them to watch. TOWN, MAN ABOUT. "Interview with French-Algerian actor Tahar Rahim". MAN ABOUT TOWN . Retrieved 24 April 2023. Love film and TV? Join BBC Culture Film and TV Club on Facebook, a community for cinephiles all over the world. After The Serpent, he will be alongside Jodie Foster and Benedict Cumberbatch in The Mauritanian, out in February. He plays Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was held without charge in Guantánamo Bay for 14 years. Along with The Looming Tower, this suggests a bold philosophy emerging in his choices. What does he want his body of work to say about him? “If I can be part of a piece of cinema that teaches people something,” he says, “I’ll be happy.” I refused to work in Hollywood for 10 years,” Rahim admits. “I’ve always said, ‘I’m not going to play a terrorist.’ Not for any price. I’d rather go work in, you know, South Korea – if someone like [filmmakers] Bong Joon-ho or Park Chan-wok called me and said, ‘I may have something with you in mind,’ I’d be on a plane tomorrow! With Hollywood, my instinct was always to go, ‘No, thanks.’ It’s not like you guys don’t have great directors here. And I’d always wanted to play an English-speaking role, just to see how I’d do it. Or if I could do it. But I simply wasn’t getting anything interesting.”
Some of the military advisors that we use in the film industry are more like military fetishists so their information needs to be taken with a pinch of salt but Mohamedou was able to help me catalogue it [all] so we knew which photos were real, which were not, and which were appropriate to his story," Carlin says. "The whole thing is about deprivation and that is what we were trying to get at." I love traveling because I’m a big fan of the culture of others. I think it makes you a richer person inside of yourself – it feeds you as a human being. It’s always good to discover new people, new cultures, new music, new movies.” Prix Lumières 2014: "Quai d'Orsay" en tête des nominations". AlloCiné (in French). 18 December 2013 . Retrieved 11 April 2023. He starred in various French-Belgian co-produced films like Our Children (2012), Le Père Noël (2014), Daguerrotype (also Japanese; 2016), and Heal the Living (2016). He also made appearances in several internationally co-produced films like The Past (2013), The Cut (2014), Mary Magdalene (2018), and The Kindness of Strangers (2019). In 2021, Tahar Rahim was cast in the lead role of ‘Mohamedou Ould Slahi’ in the American-British legal film ‘The Mauritanian.’ The film is based on the real-life person Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was captured by the US government without any charges, kept at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, and deprived of trial for fourteen years. Tahar was widely appreciated for his portrayal of Slahi. While talking about the preparation of the role in an interview, Tahar Rahim said,Without knowing Tahar Rahim’s biography, his origins are hard to point to on first impression. The French-Algerian actor is one of world cinema’s chameleons, having made a reputation for burying himself in a mixed-chocolate box of characters that have different motives and speak many languages. When we do meet, Tahar greets me with a gravelly New York accent. His features are Mediterranean. His clothes are Japanese. He is, of course, French—born in the suburbs of Belfort. The fact is, however, that while many feature films, documentaries, TV shows, books and news reports have shown the reality of the prison camp, it still remains open. The Obama administration promised to close it and failed. Now President Biden has said he aims to close it before his first term finishes. So with a new president in the Oval Office, could The Mauritanian be the Guantánamo Bay movie to herald the end of the detention centre? part, you can’t complain any more. This is your chance to do something about it. I think Tahar took that to heart. It was the exact right thing
When Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet opened to international acclaim in 2009, its 28-year-old star Tahar Rahim seemed destined for huge things. But after just one major Hollywood movie— 2011’s The Eagle, starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell—Rahim focused on working in his native France for nearly a decade, collaborating with major directors like Asghar Farhadi and Fatih Akin but never to the same level of global attention. That was by design. Films such as The Past, he says, are "the kind I most like watching – the kind that make you think about the human condition. I like films to be pure cinema, but I also like them to provide a snapshot of a family, a society or a character – something that can nourish you as a human being as well as an actor." Despite being a bestselling author, Slahi had no involvement in the film’s screenplay, which was written by MB Traven, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani. It is a different ballgame, he says: “Writing is like driving a car. Writing the beats of a screenplay? It’s like driving a rover on Mars. You have to be absolutely, extremely precise.” He appeared in a variety of French-Belgian co-produced films such as Our Children (2012), Le Père Noël (2014), Daguerrotype (also Japanese; 2016), and Heal the Living (2016). Apart from these, he appeared in several internationally co-produced films like The Past (2013), The Cut (2014), Mary Magdalene (2018), and The Kindness of Strangers (2019). In 2021, he appeared in the American-British legal film ‘The Mauritanian’ as ‘Mohamedou Ould Slahi,’ a US government captive who is languished in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp without charge or trial for fourteen years. He was appreciated for his portrayal of a real-life character. In an interview, talking about his preparation for the role, he said, Keslassy, Elsa (17 May 2023). "Playtime Boards Buzzy Biopic 'Monsieur Aznavour' Starring Tahar Rahim as Legendary Crooner (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety . Retrieved 4 June 2023.
He added, “From then on, I started to feel something inside of me come. And that felt like the right place to be.” He just totally challenged his moral response,” Wright adds. “And Tahar didn’t know what to say. He had to do it.” You can see how the people around Rahim might find his new life so startling, and why he might find it all hard to balance. For his forthcoming film, The Cut, by acclaimed German director Fatih Akin, he went on an exhausting shoot that took in six countries including Canada, Cuba, Jordan and Germany; not the least of the challenges was dealing with the extreme changes in climate. But that's what excites him, he says, the cosmopolitanism of it all. "Working with an Iranian, a Belgian, a Chinese, a Frenchman, a German Turk – that's what I like in cinema, travelling. New, fresh cinema – that's what I want to do."