The Oath (2010)

Filmed over a two-year period, The Oath interweaves the stories of Abu Jandal, Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard (now driving a cab in Yemen), and Salim Hamdan, a Guantánamo Bay prisoner charged with war crimes. Filmmaker Laura Poitras takes us deep inside the world of Al Qaeda, Guantánamo, and US interrogation methods through a dramatic structure filled with plot reversals, betrayals, and never-before-seen intelligence documents… Shading the complexities of her subjects in the manner of great novelists, Poitras delivers an intimate portrait that precludes easy conclusions as it questions the methods of America’s war on terror with uncommon eloquence.

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