By Lisa Ruckwart
UCR Class of 2015
This semester’s collection of “movies that matter” started off with a film by Stefan Schaller called “5 Jahre Leben” (5 years of life) (2013), a drama about the unjust imprisonment of a young German man of Turkish decent in Guantanamo, Cuba. The film is based on real events but rather than showing extensive torture, the film focuses on the interaction between the prisoner Murat Kurnaz and the interrogation specialist Gail Holford.
Murat was 19 when he was arrested in Pakistan in November 2001. He was sold to the USA and brought to the controversial prison on the American military base in Guantanamo. What you get from several flashbacks during the film, was that he wanted to learn more about his religion and therefore went to Pakistan, a recommendation of members in his Mosque in Bremen, where he lived all his life in a non-religious family. His plan was to become a proper Muslim before welcoming his Turkish wife to Germany. Throughout the movie it becomes clear that Murat was unaware, maybe even naïve, of the already existing tensions between the US and Afghanistan after the terror attacks of 9/11 and did not consider a link between some of the people he knew and the Taliban or Al’Qaida, although one of his friends got arrested at the airport on the way to Pakistan already.
The film does not show the arrest but Murat tells about the torture he endured during his stay in Afghanistan where he stayed before Guantanamo. The Accusation: connection to terrorism. The film ends while Murat is still in captivity and a few lines explain his release and return to Germany. From his very first interview on television you learn that his mother stayed by his side from the beginning and tried to free him, together with Human Rights advocate Bernard Docke, by addressing the German, the Turkish and also the American government. In 2005, Chancellor Merkel raised the issue in a conversation with former US president Bush, which gave rise to diplomatic debates. Only after almost five years of imprisonment he was finally released and was allowed to go back to Germany.
The interesting angle the film team took was to portray both Murat and Gail as the 
main characters and to mainly show their conversations. The role of the interrogator is quite a complex one. In one a scene Gail is looking at pictures of his family: he clearly would rather be with his family than on the prison territory but his job is to get Murat to confess, a job that makes him realize his limits. His point of departure is that Murat, in fact every prisoner in Guantanamo, is a terrorist and not that everyone in this prison is innocent until proven guilty. In Murat’s case, there was no evidence at all and thus various inhumane measures were taken to squeeze out a confession. Apart from physical punishments, sleep and malnutrition, complete isolation, and bribing, Gail played with Murat’s trust by lying about his family’s support, punishments and possible release dates. On the other hand, he is helping Murat, he is kind, gives him privileges, which makes his betrayal on Murat’s trust even more unexpected. This mental torture leaves Murat in only deeper confusion and the viewer is left with frustration about why a normal citizen is treated that way. Murat does not make a confession, why should he when he is convinced of his innocence and in prison already anyway? In the end, Gail is forced to end the interrogations, stating that he lost but that Murat did not yet win. Indeed, it took two more years.
The question of course arises, why, despite it being so obvious that Murat had no connection to terrorism and was innocent of any crime, was he captivated, tortured and why did he remain uninformed of what was actually going on. This question is not tackled in the film but was asked in interviews and discussion rounds after the actual Murat was set free. The main problem, one that U.S. President Obama now has to deal with still, is that often enough no one feels responsible to take care of the prisoners once they are outside the prison walls. Where should they go? Murat had a Turkish passport but although having lived in Germany his whole life, his home country did not want him back when the USA reportedly offered to release him in 2002. The reason for that decision is very unclear and mainly based on the possession of a Turkish passport, but Turkey did not see any responsibility either.
Murat’s reaction to the film was slightly negative at first. In an interview he explains that many cruelties and other events were left out so for him it did not fully represent what he had to endure. Only after talking to shocked friends and relatives he realized that the whole gruesome truth would have probably been too much for an audience to take in. In this manner, the film emphasizes more the confusion, numbness and frustration of the prisoner who is kept in the dark about what is going on and what will happen to him.
The film tells the exceptional story of an innocent person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Murat was lucky not to have died along the way and to have been released from Guantanamo. Many others, guilty or not, were and still are not.
Lisa Rückwardt, class of 2015, is a Law and Psychology major from Dortmund, Germany.
