Laura Poitras

Laura Poitras never describes her process as fearless. If anything, she describes filmmaking as a prolonged process of entering situations she does not fully understand and staying there long enough for the contradictions to reveal themselves. In The Oath, those contradictions take the form of Abu Jandal. Jandal, who was Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard, a taxi driver, a charismatic mentor to young men flirting with extremism, a loving father, and a man wrestling with the consequences of his own ideology all at once, is not simplified to either villain nor victim. Poitras leaves us with this ambiguity, instead telling tales of sleepless nights in Yemen, how she developed nervous tics throughout the filmmaking process, and the feeling of being slowly pulled into Abu Jandal’s unstable orbit. There is a strange intimacy in documentary filmmaking, particularly when filming conversations you cannot even understand while moving between American and Middle Eastern worlds, creating a historical record of post-9/11 life before those realities become flattened into headlines.

TRANSCRIPT:

Tania Ketenjian:
Hello and welcome to Sight Unseen. My name is Tania Ketenjian, and I'm your host. Sight Unseen is a half-hour weekly program presenting candid conversations with the artists and thinkers of our time. This week, a conversation with artist and documentarian Laura Poitras, whose most recent film, The Oath, won the well-deserved Excellence in Cinematography award for a U.S. documentary at Sundance this year and has been taking the critics by storm. The second in a trilogy of films by Laura Poitras surrounding 9/11, The Oath follows her last film, My Country, My Country. Her intention was to create a film about Guantanamo, but when she found herself in Yemen doing research, she came across Abu Jandal, a taxicab driver in Yemen who happened to have once been Osama bin Laden's bodyguard. Abu Jandal also recruited one of the most famous detainees in Guantanamo, Salim Hamdan, whose case went to Supreme Court and received international attention. When Poitras met Abu Jandal, her plans for her film shifted, and she decided to focus primarily on him. One of the attractions for Poitras was the conundrum that someone so close to bin Laden, someone so intimately connected to al-Qaeda as Abu Jandal, is free in Yemen while others are being detained on circumstances that haven't yet even been confirmed. 

But beyond that was Abu Jandal's fascinating story and dynamic presence. He recruited his brother-in-law, Salim Hamdan, into al-Qaeda. And in the film, we are witness to his internal and external conflicts in and around his participation with al-Qaeda, his admiration and condemnation of Osama bin Laden, and the choice he made to recruit his brother-in-law, given that Hamdan was jailed for several years while Jandal remained free. We see an intimate side of Abu Jandal. Poitras was able to film him in his home, in his work, observe interactions with his son, with family and friends, and with young men who are curious about his experiences and thinking of joining al-Qaeda themselves. Poitras seeks to humanize and understand these grand ideas and happenings that seem so intangible and convoluted through the press: 9/11, Guantanamo, Al Qaeda, bin Laden, terrorism. By bringing us into the home and the mind of bin Laden's bodyguard, we see the depth and layers of these complex issues. And Poitras allows them to unravel naturally. I spoke with Laura Poitras when she was here presenting her film at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Please stay tuned for her insights and more on this week's Sight Unseen.


Tania Ketenjian:
The Oath is part of a trilogy, and I remember, I think maybe when I interviewed you last, you had said you wanted to do something on Guantanamo. But this is, I mean, this is an interesting variation on that. So I'm curious, when you met the main character of the film, was his dynamism so attractive that you just couldn't turn back from it? Because he is quite dynamic.


Laura Poitras:
Yeah, how did you know? That's exactly what happened. No, I had been in Yemen for less than 2 days, and I was asked if I wanted to meet Hamdan's family, and then I was introduced to Abu Jandal. And, you know, you turn the camera on, I would say it was less than 10 seconds. Like, he is so fascinating, so charismatic, and then to know all the different ways in which he is a player in this history. So he was bin Laden's bodyguard, personal bodyguard. He was a guesthouse emir in Afghanistan, which means he received the young men and decided where they would go, which would go for, you know, what types of training. He recruited Hamdan. And he was interrogated less than a week after 9/11, and he drives a taxi cab and he's free in Yemen. I mean, and he's incredibly charismatic and has this sort of cadre of young men who, you know, sit at his knees and, you know, seeking advice. So it was not the story I went to tell, but it was a story that just had so much gravitational pull.


Tania Ketenjian:
And yeah, it just seems like— I think that's one of the keys of being a great filmmaker is to be able to see the potential of something and grab that opportunity and follow your instinct with it, even if it's not what you initially planned.


Laura Poitras:
Yeah, I mean, it's the same thing happened with My Country, My Country, where Dr. Riad— I was invited to go to Abu Ghraib prison. This is right after the photographs broke. And so I was going to the prison just to film this inspection, and Dr. Riad was the one who was leading the inspection. And I knew— I mean, again, you know, there's a lot of the filmmaking process that's, you know, murky and full with doubt, but there is something where you connect and you know that this is the thread. And I felt that with Abu Jandal, and I felt that with Dr. Riad, with, you know, within an instant. Of, you know, with filming both of them.


Tania Ketenjian:
And I just want to ask a little bit, just as a background about you, say your childhood or teenage years, were you interested in politics, interested in policy, interested in the Middle East? I mean, where did this engagement with these subjects begin for you?


Laura Poitras:
Um… I actually, I mean, I think the sort of, I was sent to this sort of free school, sort of '60s school, which had no grades or no division of ages. And so I think what it kind of taught me was that you can do what— so the idea of going to Iraq didn't seem so absurd because it was just like we didn't really have rules in the school that I went growing up. But I don't think it was so much grounded in politics. It was more just, you know, I was always making things. I was always an artist. So I was always drawing when I was a kid. And then I was actually a chef. So I actually moved to San Francisco to cook. And I started taking classes at the Art Institute. So it's always been doing creative work.


Tania Ketenjian:
That's really interesting. Yeah, I guess that's part of it, is that just to feel like you can— exactly, just go to Iraq or go to Yemen for 2 years.


Laura Poitras:
Yeah, but I mean, the Middle East thread, I mean, it's really like— I feel like I'm making films about America and America post-9/11, specifically. So the last 2 films are really looking at the repercussions of 9/11. So I'm not necessarily drawn to going to other places. I'm actually interested in understanding power dynamics and particularly how they relate to US policy. And so that's what sort of draws me to, you know, Iraq or Yemen, was to tell stories about the occupation of Iraq or Guantanamo that are sort of located in those places because that's where our history is taking us. But I think I'm really also interested in primary documents, that we need these images. I mean, these images tell a history that we will want a record of. And so I I think that's also sort of part of the pull, is say, okay, what does Yemen look like? What is this radical movement? What does it mean? What do they stand for? And this, you know, what does the occupation of Iraq look like? And to sort of both say something about it in the present, but also to have a historical record.


Tania Ketenjian:
I think that that was actually such a beautiful addition to The Oath, which was these scenes albeit brief, but absolutely compelling, especially because of the music, of the streets of Yemen, of driving through the streets of Yemen, of the landscape of Yemen. It was just so beautiful. And it also continued that thread of really being a humanizing story. Because I've read several interviews, and one of which said that this is really a story about two brothers-in-law. It's a story about just the humanity of something that we don't see as necessarily humane.


Laura Poitras:
Yeah, I mean, I'm, you know, that's just the kind of filmmaking I'm interested in, is sort of grounding these big sort of macro issues in micro stories. And so between Abu Jandal and Salim Hamdan, we are walked through 9/11 and post-9/11. So if that's Guantanamo interrogations, military commissions, you know, these two guys take us on a journey through that. And I think that it's important for us to understand that, that this world-changing event of 9/11 is actually carried out by people, and that there are differences of opinion among those people who, you know, were in that circle. And I think that the film, by, you know, looking at this sort of spectrum— so here, you know, Abu Jandal, who, you know, in the film is revealed as having differences of opinion. I think that's really important for us to know, right? I mean, here's somebody who was so close, and he diverged from the attacking of civilians. And so I think that that's just really an important history, because these are people who are really, you know— Abu Jandal was in the inner circle.


Tania Ketenjian:
Yeah, he really was in the inner circle. So let's— I'd like to just get a, for our listeners, just sort of a chronological idea of how this happened. You went to Yemen, and how did the making of this film come about for you?


Laura Poitras:
So actually, when I began the film in Iraq, I was actually also interested in Guantanamo, but I thought, well, I'm going to make this film in Iraq, thinking that Guantanamo would be closed. When I finished that film, Guantanamo was still open, so I knew that that's sort of the next thing I wanted to do. And it was just I just felt it had to be done. I just needed to do it. So I went to Yemen with a lawyer who was representing several clients, and I was looking for a story of somebody returning, being released from Guantanamo and returning home. And then that's when I met Abu Jandal, you know, really early in the visit. But it took a long time to actually do the filming. So I ended up renting a house in Yemen and going back and forth for 2 years, and then we were cutting at the same time. So it took a little bit over 2 years, and then the Guantanamo portion was, was shot, you know, during this time of his trial. So it was about 2 years shooting. I mean, the way that I work, I mean, in the field I work alone. So when I was in Yemen, I was doing my own shooting, my own camera, and I had a Yemen co-producer, Nasser Arabi, who's a very respected journalist, and he was helping me coordinate things there. And then I worked with 2 extraordinary people who did the— who filmed in Yemen, Kirsten Johnson, who did the cinematography, and Jonathan Oppenheim, the editor. And so they did— they filmed in Guantanamo, and then we put the two together. We talked very closely about how we wanted very different aesthetics for these two locations. So Guantanamo was these very eerie, locked-off shots, and sort of approaching it like a crime scene. And Yemen is much more intimate, and you sort of feel it and taste it.


Tania Ketenjian:
Yeah, there's a lot more movement in Yemen. You can hear the horns, you can really feel like what it would be on the streets, and I mean, you can almost smell it. And the final shot is of walking through the streets in Yemen at night. So you met Abu Jandal, and he has this sparkle in his eyes. He has this intelligence, a vulnerability in the sense that he's open and clear about what he's going through. And his brother-in-law is in jail at Guantanamo, and he's sort of grappling with that.


Laura Poitras:
Right. I mean, it's really a story, right? When I began filming, you know, there was a lot of guilt, and because he was the one who recruited Salim Hamdan. And so I think that was part of the motivation why he agreed to do the film. As well as having seen my last film, you know, seen My Country, My Country. I think that also helped. But Abu Jandal, I mean, he's a very contradictory character, 'cause you know he's very media savvy, and yet at other times you have this remarkable, I mean, extraordinary intimacy and access that is very genuine. And so you're constantly sort of skirting the surface of these kind of truth, lies, you know? And that's kind of one of the push-pulls of the film is trying to, figure out really where he stands. And the way we constructed it was really to sort of approach it like a psychological thriller, that you sort of, you enter in and you think you know where you stand, and then we are constantly pulling the rug out from under the viewer so that by the end you come with, you leave with a very different understanding of what makes this guy tick.


Tania Ketenjian:
I think also his son is in it, and that also immediately inspires some sort of intimacy for us because we're seeing a product of his.


Laura Poitras:
Yeah, I mean, in my last films I've always had what I've, you know, called antiheroes. I mean, sort of secondary characters. And in this one he's kind of the main character. He's, you know, he's not your typical subject for a documentary because you're not quite sure if you like him. If you like him, you maybe feel a little bit guilty that you like him. But the stuff with his son was always so great because it sort of so defies expectation. Like, here's this very loving, warm dad dad who then can talk about, you know, these sort of really horrific things. And how do you reconcile that? And that's just really interesting. Reality is not as simple as we would like it to be, you know. And so the teaching with his son, and it's just very key to understanding his, you know, who he is.


Tania Ketenjian:
I mean, this is going to sound a little bit random, but it reminds me, you know, at one moment in the film, briefly, if I recall correctly, he says that his father was not very affectionate towards him, that he wasn't very close to him, and he had to leave the house. And there was an interview that I heard about an autobiography of a recovering skinhead, and this kid also came from a really difficult family, so he became a skinhead, but he was so charming that if he hadn't run into skinheads, he would have run into someone else, and maybe that's what he would have become. Yeah, it's just interesting, the reasons why we become intrigued by something.


Laura Poitras:
No, it is a theme in the film, this kind of father figure thing, and he talks about, you know, that bin Laden was a father figure figure for these guys in Afghanistan. And I think that that's— it's pretty fascinating to try to understand that. And I think it also, you know, you see him with his son, and my prediction— I mean, I think people sometimes look at the film and say, oh, he's teaching his kid to be a jihadist. I actually think it's the opposite. I think his son is actually— is going to be, you know, is not going to follow the path of his father. I actually think he's not because of the sort of family environment that he has and the way he's relating with him. So, I mean, I'm actually very interested in, you know, going and seeing Habib in 10 years when he's 17 or 18, like, see who this guy is. And my guess is he's going to be a mechanic, not a jihadist. And that's a question that's posed at the beginning of the film.


Tania Ketenjian:
Oh, yeah, that's true. I remember that question, yeah. So you said— I read that you said that this was the hardest film that you've ever made. It was the hardest film for you. And I can guess maybe part of that is due to the traveling back and forth, or maybe the emotional challenges. And I'd love to hear why.


Laura Poitras:
I mean, this film really just felt dangerous. It just felt dangerous. And not just the dangerous, it's Al Qaeda dangerous, like, you know, there's, you know, whatever, the sort of underlying, like, is it safe? Can I trust these people? But it just feels like really dangerous territory to, you know, to tell a story about somebody who you can't quite pin down. And, but it was also fascinating. I mean, the last film was about a heroic guy. It didn't, it was dangerous. I mean, Iraq was a much more dangerous place to make a film. You know, like you step on the street, you might get killed. Yemen, you know, I had a life. I, you know, went to the market, I shopped, I took taxis, you know, like, I mean, there were dangers and there were targeting of tourists, but it was nothing like Iraq. 

But there was a certain kind of psychological, like I would land in Yemen, my eye would start twitching. I didn't sleep. I had nightmares. I mean, there was just something about Abu Jandal's psychology that you just felt a little bit twisted, like that you were kind of caught in it. And like, and he would be like, you know, first he would get the access and then it would be gone and then it would be there and there was this kind of just shifting that kind of reflected who he is, which is also somewhat shifting in the film. So psychologically it was hard and it was also just in a certain sense politically less correct, right? I mean, it's more politically correct to make a film about like a victim of Guantanamo and there are those stories. There are people who have been sold for bounty that never should have been sent there. This is a little bit more murky. I mean, these are guys— I mean, this was bin Laden's bodyguard, right? He ran a guest house. I mean, he's not the innocent, right? And yet his story is really important in terms of where he parted courses and to understand that. So in that sense, it just was hard.


Tania Ketenjian:
Do you feel close to him? I mean, emotionally close to him? I mean, the obvious answer would be yes, but then when someone makes you feel sort of like you're standing on shaky ground, it's kind of a no. And so what are the levels of that closeness or distance?


Laura Poitras:
Right. I mean, we're not in touch, you know. I mean, the U.S. government already put me on a watch list. I have to be careful about sort of my interactions. When you make a film about somebody, you always have to get to a sort of place of closeness in terms of understanding where someone's coming from. So it's very different than my previous films where I really stay in touch with people. And, you know, this was a this was a lot more distance in the working relationship. But I do feel that, like, as an artist, to sort of capture somebody, you have to sort of enter into their sphere. I mean, that's kind of what the job is. So yeah, there is a connection there.


Tania Ketenjian:
Now, just sort of logistically speaking, do you speak Arabic? What would you wear? And just how challenging was it to be a woman there?


Laura Poitras:
So, you know, so in Yemen, I did my, I worked camera and sound, and so I often worked alone. And it's not like, I mean, women veil there, but you're not, it's not required. So depending on the situation, the circumstance, I would decide, you know, how. But I would, you know, oftentimes pull my hair back, but I didn't, it wasn't, I didn't have to. Like, you could, you know, you could go as a tourist and not change your appearance. But I tended to be, you know, just be respectful. I mean, that's kind of what I did. And I definitely, it's a very gender-divided society in terms of the public sphere. So people aren't used to women. So if you're filming a group of men, they're not used to women being present. You know, you're very— I'm very aware of that. You know, just try to be respectful, you know. But as a Western woman, you kind of— you get to cross, you know, between these two worlds. So I get to spend time with the women and also you get to spend time with men. And it's harder if you're Yemeni to do that.


Tania Ketenjian:
How about the Arabic question?


Laura Poitras:
Good question. So I can navigate, I can be polite, I can get in taxi cabs, I can… but I'm not fluent at all. So I'm oftentimes getting translation after the fact. So I film situations and I know what the— kind of I have a pretty good sense of the overarching thing that's happening, but then I get translation after. Unless I'm doing an interview, then I work with an interpreter.


Tania Ketenjian:
Because I was just thinking about the editing process I mean, you must have gotten so much tape. All of that would have to be translated, and then you go into— I mean, that's like too— that's a lot of work.


Laura Poitras:
I mean, yeah, there was this sort of delay process. So we would film, and then we'd get the translation, like sometimes several weeks after. And then you'd be like, whoa, you know, like, you know, he would be like, oh, like there's a scene where he talks about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his rule about interrogations. And so I happen to have been in the, in the cab and I was setting focus. And I actually didn't know that that was the conversation. And then we get the translation back and you're like, okay, this is important. And so there was this delay, and I think actually the delay maybe also helped for people to drop their guard, 'cause they're like, oh, she doesn't understand. Even though logically they knew that it would all be translated, as it's actually referenced in the film. But people drop their guard 'cause in the moment they think they can talk amongst themselves.


Tania Ketenjian:
I love how that happens. How do you identify yourself as, do you identify yourself as an artist? Do you identify yourself as a journalist? As a documentarian? And initially earlier in this conversation, you said artist and that you went to— took art classes. So…


Laura Poitras:
So I think first and foremost as an artist. Yeah. And then second, maybe as a documentarian, because I am interested in primary documents. There are certain times where I definitely evoke the privileges of being a journalist, and I think the work is journalistic, but I think it's actually driven by wanting to express things. And so that, yeah, I consider myself first really an artist.


Tania Ketenjian:
So back to, back to, back to the film. Moving between the Middle East and America, you know, my family's from Lebanon and they're very different worlds. And Beirut is, is quite westernized in so many ways because it was a French colony. But, but I'm, you know, I'm curious about that sort of cultural shift you would have to go through every time you switch between the two places and what that was like for you emotionally and what that was like also for you in the way in which you ran your life. I mean, your friends, your family, you know, did you have a life of your own to a certain extent that you felt comfortable with?


Laura Poitras:
I mean, in Yemen, I mean, doing the work is definitely— there are certain sacrifices. I mean, there's sort of very much a solitary journey. But in the Middle East, I mean, as you know, there's sort of family units. There's such like tight bonds. That I would kind of enter in, but then I would always have to take space. I'd be like, "Okay," and they'd be like, "Oh, you're not— what's wrong? Are you okay?" And I'd be like, "No, I'm okay. I just need a little space." So it was always navigating, particularly in Iraq, because I was living with the family. So I'd go up and read, and then everybody, all the girls would come up and say, "Are you okay? Are you okay?" I was like, "Yeah, I'm okay. I'm just reading." So there was this— but I love the culture. I mean, I just love it. Yemen is like— It's just an extraordinary place. It's unfortunate that it's becoming less stable because it's just a place that's just fantastic. I mean, the food is incredible. The women, I mean, the cooking is unbelievable. And the produce, it's just a really beautiful society. Even though it's so, so, so poor, people look out for each other in a certain kind of a way that you just don't have in the West. So, yeah, but there's a bit of a culture shock going between the two. And I felt it more in Iraq because I was going from a war zone back to the U.S. where people— you just— I mean, we're still in a war. And do you feel it? I mean, that's kind of shocking. You know, people's lives. I mean, there's a quarter of the population of Iraqis are displaced. You know, probably half a million to a million are dead. I mean, that's— this is like the consequences for that on society are so long-lasting. And we don't even, like, you know, skip a beat. Like, there's just— we're not processing the sort of consequences of that, both misguided, you know, decision to occupy Iraq and then completely failed policy that has resulted in a loss of a generation.


Tania Ketenjian:
You know, this morning I was briefly listening to, on my way over here, there's a radio program called World Have Your Say, and today's subject of it everyone from the world calls in to BBC's show, and today's BBC World Service, and today's subject was someone had been stabbed in the streets of New York, and for an hour everyone walked by him and he died. No one cared to do something about it. Someone even— Yeah, it's just a crazy story. And so someone called in and said, you know, I was a victim of attack, and I realized that every time I bring up the issue of myself being attacked, people sort of glaze over. They don't really— I'm wondering, when you start talking about Iraq and start talking about just some of the issues that you've discovered along this journey that you've been on making these two documentaries, about to make a third because it's a trilogy, do you find that when you talk about the things that you've discovered, people are open to it? Are they closed to it? Is there a desire for you that they be more open


Laura Poitras:
I mean, the reception to The Oath has been really surprising in a good way. I mean, we're actually asking the audience to do a lot of work, you know, like both in terms of the way we're sort of setting up his character and these reveals, and then that he's an antihero. And I think people are interested in it. Like, I think people appreciate not being given a sort of an ideological position, if that's the left or the right. I think we're a little— it's boring. It's boring to be fed a line, you know. And I think we're not engaging people's intelligence. And so I think people really, really respect that. So I'm in a sense hopeful about that. 

I mean, I would like that we translate the cost of these, you know, this policy in some more terms that we can relate to. So for instance, you know, if something like the Virginia Tech, you know, killing— I mean, everybody gets a bio, you know, when Americans die. We all get to be victims. If I get kidnapped and killed in Yemen or Iraq, it gets to— it, it, it counts. It gets sort of recorded. When Iraqis translators are, you know, systematically, you know, executed, nobody— it's not a story. We don't sort of calculate their lives and the value of their lives. And so that's really unfortunate, you know, and I think ultimately, you know, the media and the press is, you know, is culpable in not translating the consequences into sort of terms that we can understand, just so we even understand it just in terms of ourselves. Like, if somebody dropped, you know, a drone bomb on a bunch of civilians in the U.S., I mean, I think people would be upset. I mean, as they should be, you know, like civilian casualties are not a good thing. And if they are your grandmother, your sister, and I think they mean something different than if you actually understand them as people. So I think it's unfortunate that we have so little ability to translate the consequences of what's happening in our foreign policy.


Tania Ketenjian:
Yeah, and something personal like this gives that immediate access, that emotional access.


Laura Poitras:
After the film, they often ask me, "Is he going to be okay?" You know, and I'm like, "You're concerned about him?" You know, and so it's kind of like if you give people something to sort of understand where somebody's coming from, it actually is, you know, it is this act of dialogue. Like these young guys who were in a sense pretty radical, who were sitting down, they would like talk to me and they're like, "Wow, an American is coming here." I mean, it's an act of dialogue. And so I think, you know, there just needs to be more of that, and I think it helps on all sides.


Tania Ketenjian:
Those were the words of artist and documentarian Laura Poitras speaking about her most recent film, The Oath, part 2 of a trilogy of films following My Country, My Country. To learn more about Laura Poitras and her film, please visit Praxis Films at praxis-films.com. My name is Tania Ketenjian. This is Sight Unseen, a half-hour weekly program featuring candid conversations with the artists and thinkers of our time. You're listening to Resonance 104.4 FM, the UK's first radio art station.