"Back in the town of Bnei Brak there is a street named after my great-grandfather Chaim Pearl, who was one of the founders of the town."
These were among the final words spoken by Daniel Pearl the Wall Street Journal reporter who was brutally murdered by his Islamic fundamentalist captors. They killed him via decapitation and then cut his body into pieces. And just before he uttered those words, he said the following:
"I am Jewish. I am a Jewish American from California. My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish."
In that one moment, He was Koneh Olam HaBa. He died a martyr’s death. He died proclaiming his Judaism.
So who was Daniel Pearl? He was an assimilated Jew who intermarried. His wife Mariane is a practicing Nichiren Buddhist. The wedding ceremony was an abomination of combined Jewish and Buddhist ritual. Why God chose this man as a Martyr will forever be a puzzlement to me. But that is what he was. He was killed because he was a Jew.
Last Sunday I saw the film ‘A Mighty Heart’. It is based on the memoirs of his wife Marriene and has received much critical acclaim. I couldn’t wait to see it. But after I did, I was disappointed. The story told was sterile. It lacked passion and perspective. Filmed in documentary style it was quite tedious to watch. Although it was very likely an accurate portrayal of events, it did not convey the insidiousness of the captors. Nor the motives or religious devotion that moved them to do it. It was bereft of any context. Instead it showed events as they played out without commentary. As if this was just another kidnapping albeit with a sensational ending. One that was not shown just referenced.
I understand the director Michael Winterbottom’s motives. He wanted to be apolitical and present as factual a reproduction of events as he could. Normally I would applaud such an approach. But not here. Context is all important. This isn’t just some random work of artistic expression. This movie was made post 9/11. The people who slaughtered Daniel Pearl would just as easily crash a airplane into a skyscraper given the opportunity to do so. That should have been the focus of this movie. But it was virtually ignored. The courage and stoicism of Marrien Pearl as poignant as it was should have been secondary to that. The only point in the movie that came anywhere close to presenting context was at the end when Daniel Pearl uttered his final words before being beheaded.
People who bend over backwards not to present a point of view in a major film like this are unwittingly complicit with the very people who perpetrated this crime. There is no shortage of propaganda on their part. Their points of view get plenty of expression in an all too sympathetic media. It is the duty of all good and decent people in the arts to present a counter to that. This film failed in that responsibility. It was… objective. One cannot afford to be objective when the enemies of freedom are anything but objective. Balance in the absence of a countervailing viewpoint equals complicity with the enemy. In a medium which is so influential it behooves them to present the truth about the captors. Leaving out that truth is a distortion of it. They should have presented the beliefs and motives of the kidnappers. That is entirely absent in this film.
Instead it pays homage to the co-operation between people of different cultures and religions. Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians are seen working together in complete harmony to find and free a Jewish captive. This film did not pay tribute to anything else.
So as accurate as the event portrayed in this film is, I do not recommend this movie. The absence of perspective makes the viewer feel complacent and resigned to the realities of the world we live in. And that is a bad outcome. Without a clear message of condemnation and sense of outrage, this film is no more than a process movie. I should have felt anger and outrage after I saw it. Instead I felt disappointment.
