le carré was a stalwart if soft critic on western intervention in the middle east and the novel is clearly an extended critique on american rendition. rendition was ofc still happening under obama but a lot changed between when the book came out in 08 and the movie in 14, and I feel like it isn’t clear if the filmmaking team knows or even cares what the source material is about, or if they were just thinking that “adaptations by…

Rupert Roopnaraine was a member of Guyana’s Working People’s Alliance and served as Minister of Education for years. In the 70s, he taught at Cornell. this film is not actually directed by him, but by several of his students who formed the autonomous and semi-anonymous Victor Jara Collective (they directed another film in 1983 before disbanding). He passed at the beginning of this year, and I wonder if that’s the reason for his crediting/commemorating on Criterion? this film is widely…