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Capsule summary: “My Trip to Al-Qaeda”
Austin writer Lawrence Wright hosted a surprise early screening Saturday night of the new documentary based on his one-man play, “My Trip to Al-Qaeda.”
The documentary, directed by Alex Gibney, details the thousands of hours of interviews that Wright conducted while reporting on the terrorist group for The New Yorker. It also focuses on the tensions between being reporter and being a citizen after the 9/11 attacks.
Included in the documentary, of course, are many points that the writer made in his prize-winning nonfiction, “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.”
It’s a deeply personal documentary, detailing Wright’s frustration with U.S. policies that served to fuel the fire of Al-Qaeda. The torture, the waterboarding, the use of dogs to terrorize prisoners. (Wright goes into detail about the particular aversion to dogs that Islamists have because of a nasty historical incident hundreds of years ago.)
Wright first staged in his play in New York in 2007. But the documentary goes beyond just showing Wright on stage. It incorporates footage of him in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, as well as details about his meticulous cataloging of interviews that led to the writing of “The Looming Tower.”
It’s an insightful look inside a writer’s mind as he goes about trying to explain the rise of Al-Qaeda and the dangers that lie ahead if Al-Qaeda wins. The group has no political agenda, he says, other than to fuel the hatred of Westerners. And if Al-Qaeda ever takes political control, Wright openly wonders what kinds of policies they will institute. The answers are rather depressing and terrifying.
The screening on Saturday was kept secret, partly because the movie is scheduled to have its official world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. But Wright says he wanted to show the movie first in his hometown. It’s a coup for SXSW. And it’s a very worthwhile, timely documentary.
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