An Alternative View of the Alleged Marathon Bomber. Loyalty or Treachery? Did
he do it?
On Saturday, April 23, 2016 I attended the Tribeca Film Festival in New York
City to see the 13 minute student film entitled, "Jahar" at the Bow Tie Cinema
in the neighborhood of Chelsea.
"In the days after the Boston Marathon bombing, a young man must come to terms
with the fact that one of his friends is involved," reads the blurb on the
Film Fest schedule. The director, Henry Hayes, was born and raised in
Cambridge, MA. He moved to New York in 2011 to attend NYU's Tisch School of
the Arts. He now lives in Brooklyn and works as a commercial editor.
The screenwriters were Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Henry Hayes. The cast was only
four actors: Devante Lawrence, Andre Ozim, Andrew Raia, and Alberto Rosende.
The film starts out with the young men watching the TV news, which is
announcing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan as the Boston Marathon
bombers. Then it cuts to "Two Years Earlier." Jahar is portrayed as a short,
dorky white guy, even though in reality he is over 6 feet tall. He is shown in
high school being ridiculed. "What kind of name is Dzhokhar?"
His friend defends him, saying, "His name is Jahar." His friends, two black
and one white, treat Jahar in an inclusive, yet condescending way. "That's my
nigga right there," says "Mo" as they hang out in the basketball court smoking
blunts. "That's my boy, my brother." They also call him "Jizz," which Jahar
was clearly not comfortable about. Their conversation is vacuous.
In Jahar's mother's version of events, Tamerlan told her he was on his way to
pick up Jahar from school, when the police started chasing them. In this film
version of events, Jahar gets a call on his cell phone after his friends asked
him for a ride somewhere. "Sorry, I got to go help my brother," he says. "Help
him with what?" they ask. "I don't know," Jahar answers and leaves.
Without any transition, the film cuts to the three friends minus Jahar
standing back on the basketball court in communal shock, contemplating what
had just happened.
Only Jahar's friend, "Mo" was loyal. "Who was the one who drove us all home
that night after the party? Eight drunk guys and one in the trunk and he was
able to get us past the police. We know him," Mo insisted. The "Mo" character
is supposed to be the screenwriter, Zolan.
But the other friend says, "I don't know man. Do we really know him?"
"That's our boy, that's our nigga," Mo continues to insist.
The film ends with the FBI asking Mo, "What was he like?"
After the film, native New Yorker Karina asked the director and artists if
deep down inside they may think he's innocent? Any time in their mind did they
ever think he was framed?
"They both said no they do not think he's framed, they believe he's guilty,
and both looked at me like I had 10 heads. Rude, and clearly ignorant, making
a film without any real research into the case," Kitty told NT. "I'm pissed at
the producers who are so arrogant... They loving the success of this while
their "friend" is on death row for something he didn't do."
Whether he was innocent or guilty, one would expect more personal concern from
true friends. It was a very disappointing reaction, since the movie was
actually quite moving regarding the one friend's defense of Jahar. It made me
think a lot about loyalty.
Clearly, these young men were capitalizing off the fact that they knew the
Boston Bomber in high school, without engaging in any character development or
political challenge. The film seems quickly thrown together rather than deeply
thought out. It only made the festival due to the high profile content. The
line-up for the Question and Answer session had more participation from the
makers of Jahar than from any other producers of short films, which added to
my impression that the film was receiving special treatment. Zolan has now
been given a job writing for the Boston Globe, at a time when many writers
have been laid off.
"Seems strange that he would be right in with the propaganda media. Maybe
that's the deal they offered him if he went along with the official narrative.
The look on the actors face playing him at end made you think he got scared at
that point," Karina told NT.
It was, on one hand, somewhat daring to stir up sympathy for the accused.
However, the filmmakers' demeanor afterwards just made me think of traitors.
Because if your friend truly did something like that, you would want to ask
him why. Or if you believed he was innocent you would stand by that. The film
gave the impression of some students that knew him superficially and decided
to make themselves popular by using him.
"What was their point of making the film? For a different perspective? Why do
they care about portraying a different perspective if they believe he's
guilty? More questions than answers for me," said Nicole, who had driven from
Vermont to see the film.
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