âProfileâ is the terrorist thriller as IT session
By Mark Feeney Globe Staff,Updated May 12, 2021, 11:57 a.m.
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Valene Kane in Profile. Courtesy of BAZELEVS and Focus Features
âProfileâ is based on a true story, from 2014, about an English reporter who masqueraded online as a Muslim convert to infiltrate ISIS. Thatâs straightforward enough.
Whatâs even more straightforward â except that at the same time it isnât at all straightforward â is how the film plays out. âProfileâ consists entirely of screen shots: Skype and FaceTime calls, Facebook messaging, the reporterâs desktop, Google searches, even, yes, a few cat videos (the demands of Web verisimilitude must be met). This is straightforward, because thatâs how the events happened: virtually. Itâs not straightforward, because seeing only small screens on a big screen is not how movies are normally viewed: cinematically.
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While the found-footage genre roared to life and eventually fizzled out across the late 90s and early 2010s, there’s recently been a resurgence of drama, thriller and horror films using innovative, non-traditional perspective. Feature films like
Searching,
Host and now
Profile make clever use of the familiar computer desktop, using desktop applications and cameras to tell stories in an exciting new way.
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov (
In the Skin of a Jihadist by French author Anna Erelle,
Profile follows struggling British journalist Amy Whittaker (Valene Kane), who goes undercover as a recent convert to Islam in the hopes of getting the scoop on a prominent ISIS recruiter (Shazad Latif).
Timur Bekmambetov’s PROFILE Draws A Hard Line Between Arab And Terrorist
You can watch the thriller this Friday, and you should.
By Mary Kay Mcbrayer · @mkmcbrayer · May 11, 2021, 3:31 PM EDT Timur Bekmambetov s PROFILE.
As a Lebanese Christian who grew up in the American South, let me warn you: I am
very fussy about anti-Arab and Islamophobic representations on screen. My helplessness at watching dated yet beloved stories like
Die Hard, The Sopranos or
The Wire drives me into a stuttering rage. I understand that they accurately represent how discriminatory practices
really were in the early 2000s – believe me, I was in an eighth grade mass media class when the towers came down. I have been to gun ranges in my hometown where a target option is the outline of an Arab man in a head covering. I understand all too well that things were/are
‘Profile’ Film Review: Journalist Catfishes ISIS Fighter in Tense Online Thriller
Timur Bekmambetov’s portrait of a screen-to-screen relationship is timely, although it mostly scratches the surface
Carlos Aguilar | May 11, 2021 @ 5:00 PM
BEZELEVS/Focus
Expanding the digital-age subgenre of films entirely told on computer screens from the personal (“Searching”) and the supernatural (“Unfriended”) into the geopolitical, “Profile” is a tense on-camera thriller based on a real-life case dealing with international terrorism.
In 2014, French journalist Anna Erelle, using a fake identity, established a pretend romantic relationship with an ISIS jihadist via Skype. The objective was to learn about their tactics to recruit and transport young European women into Syria. Her hazardous ordeal is documented in the book “In the Skin of a Jihadist.”