The Oath

Documentary Feature, Festival Favorites
D: Laura Poitras

Poitras’ documentary takes this decade’s faceless al Qaeda bogeyman and locates a pair of dramatically human stories beating within. The Oath follows Abu Jandal, Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard, who is now a cabdriver in Yemen. Poitras and her camera spend a lot of time with Jandal in his cab, mosque, and home, learning his personal history and perspective. Instead of becoming a political tract, however, this film becomes a surprisingly moving family drama as it probes Jandal’s complicated guilt about the arrest, trials, and long detainment at Guantánamo of his brother-in-law Salim Hamdan, whom Jandal had introduced to both jihad and his sister. Employed as bin Laden’s driver, Hamdan was arrested in Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 and taken to Guantánamo, where he remained for seven years. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor in a landmark case regarding military tribunals, which only caused Congress to rewrite the laws governing them. Hamdan’s story is told through his letters home.

Friday, March 19, 11am, Ritz 2

This article appears in March 19 • 2010.

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Marjorie Baumgarten is a film critic and contributing writer at The Austin Chronicle, where she has worked in many capacities since the paper's founding in 1981. She served as the Chronicle's Film Reviews editor for 25 years.