Maya’s response to her station chief when he asks what she thinks of Pakistan applies here, and to both sides: “It’s kinda fucked up.”

Darkness seeps through “Zero Dark Thirty,” into its characters, into its politics. Maya seems to haunt her own office and home: In one particularly indelible shot, the camera moves with her as she emerges from a lightless hall.

Its title is military speak for the dead of night: 12:30 a.m., the precise time of the Navy SEAL strike in Pakistan that resulted in bin Laden’s death. If “Zero Dark Thirty” is Bigelow’s technical symphony, the strike is her fourth movement. Cinematographer Greig Fraser doesn’t frame the raid as a stylized Hollywood retelling. Using an infrared light mounted on the camera along with a night vision device attached to the lens mount, he captures the moonless Pakistani night with stark naturalism — the cameras move with the SEALs so that it’s practically a first-person viewing, keeping the stakes high even when you know what’s coming.

Fitting for a film that has everyone arguing, interpretations of the final shot differ from one viewer to the next. It’s a testament to Chastain’s power to make people feel the weight of the scene in varying degrees and ways, but it’s also a testament to the film’s ability to be many things at once.

So, keep talking. Provocation is “Zero Dark Thirty” ’s specialty.