iraq

No End In Sight (Director: Charles Ferguson, USA, 2007): First-time director Charles Ferguson decided to make this film at a time when a number of books were being published about the Bush administration’s disastrous handling of the Iraq war. In fact, Ferguson has known George Packer, author of probably the definitive work (so far) on the war, The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, for fifteen years. This helped to explain why there was a familiarity about many of the people I saw on the screen. What Ferguson has made is essentially an even more hard-hitting version of Packer’s book.

Ignoring the question of whether the war itself was justified was a wise choice. By focussing strictly on how the war and occupation were planned (or perhaps more accurately, not planned), Ferguson’s film appeals to both the doves and the hawks, all of whom must agree after seeing the film that the Iraq war is now a full-blown debacle. In interviews about the film, Ferguson has gravely but confidently stated that he believes the US will have a significant military presence in Iraq for the next 20 to 30 years. His film quietly and soberly puts all the pieces together, building emotional power as it goes. He speaks with the people who were first on the ground in Iraq after the invasion, and we hear how ill-prepared they were. Then the hasty establishment of the Coalition Provisional Authority turned the country into, for all intents and purposes, a new dictatorship with L. Paul Bremer wielding incredible power and changing policy decisions with little consultation. The three most damning policies he pursued were the failure to proceed quickly with an Iraqi-led government, the de-Baathification of the civil service, and the dissolution of the Iraqi Army. Along with the failure of American troops to stop looting and establish law and order quickly after the invasion, Ferguson and his group of interviewees feel these bad decisions at the beginning of the war were significant in leading to the current chaos.

This is a sobering and necessary film. And yet it would have been great to hear even a few suggestions for how to make things right. How can we learn from these mistakes and lessen the damage that’s already been done? Unfortunately, that film has yet to be made.

The film is in limited release right now in the US, expanding over the next few weeks. There is no release date yet for Toronto.

Trailer
Official site for the film

(9/10)

Tagged as: Documentaries, iraq, Theatrical Release

The nominations were announced for the Oscars yesterday. I’ve been seeing fewer feature films lately, but I do manage to catch more documentaries. Of the five nominees, I’ve only seen two so far, but I plan to try to see all of them if I can before the Academy Awards are handed out on February 25.

The nominees for Best Documentary are:

It’s nice to see that documentary film is serving some of its most important purposes in these films: to bear witness, and to kick us in the conscience. It’s interesting to note that two films deal with Christianity (both deal with forms of toxic Christianity, in my opinion), two deal with the Iraq war, and one with a global crisis. No uplifting films, this year, sadly. Times are tough.

If you’ve seen any of these, what did you think? Who’s your bet to win? My money is on Al Gore’s sobering PowerPoint presentation on climate change. Not the most creatively filmed, but certainly the most urgent, and it managed to present information in an entertaining and mostly guilt-free way that made me want to make some changes to the way I live.

UPDATE: In a bit of cross-blog linkery, I’ve listed the losers in this category for the past few years over at Runner-Up! Check ‘em out!

Tagged as: christianity, environment, faith, iraq

Battleground: 21 Days on the Empire’s Edge (Canada/USA, 2004, Director: Stephen Marshall, 84 minutes): Most of the documentaries produced about the Iraq war (and also, for that matter, the Vietnam War) have really been about ourselves. Our motives, our politics, our guilt. What Stephen Marshall has done in Battleground is let us see the war from the perspective of ordinary Iraqis. This is even more remarkable when it’s noted that Marshall, one of the founders of the Guerrilla News Network, admits that much of his previous work was “agitprop”, slanted and polemical. That this film, shot over three weeks in late 2003, is so balanced is thanks in part to a little bit of serendipity.

On the plane to Jordan, Marshall sits next to Farhan (or “Frank” as he now calls himself), a beefy Iraqi-American on his way back to try to find the family he left behind after the first Iraq war. Heeding the encouragement of the first President Bush after Iraq’s army had been pushed out of Kuwait, Farhan joined other Shia Muslims in rising up against the regime of Saddam Hussein. But when Saddam began airstrikes against the rebels, the Americans did nothing, and 100,000 Iraqis perished. Farhan was lucky. He was shot and tortured, but managed to get out of the country with the help of some American soldiers. Fearful of reprisals against his family, he spent 13 years in America without making contact and now he’s returning, not knowing even if any of his family are left alive. This storyline alone would have made a compelling and heartbreaking film, but Marshall weaves Farhan’s story throughout the film, including several tearfully joyous reunions.

There is also Raed Jarrar, an engineer (and incidentally, one of Iraq’s most famous bloggers) monitoring the presence of depleted uranium in American shells used against Iraqi targets. With his Geiger counter, he goes from place to place trying to warn people away from areas of contamination, but with little success. Poor Iraqis melt down the shells and tank wrecks to sell for scrap iron. Contaminated scrap iron.

Then there is the female translator who longs for a return to the days of Saddam, arguing with the Egyptian businessman who thinks the American defeat of Iraq will help it join other “losers” like Germany and Japan into developing into an economic powerhouse. And the American tank commander who cynically predicts that the war isn’t about democracy or oil, but about geopolitical strategic interests, “over the next fifty to a hundred years.”

One thing stood about all the Iraqis in the film. Like any other culture, and especially one with thousands of years of history, the Iraqis are a very proud people. The worst thing about the current occupation is that it is humiliating for the Iraqis. First they were humiliated by Saddam, and now by the Americans. This is something that the American army doesn’t seem to understand yet, how powerful this feeling is, especially when it becomes a rallying point for the insurgency. Even though there are lots of political, ethnic and religious factions in the country, they may yet unite around a shared sense of humiliation, and then things could get even uglier.

All in all, this was a riveting journey into a war zone. And instead of focussing on the explosions, as our simple-minded media have been doing, the film feeds the hunger of viewers like me to see real Iraqis, living their lives under such incredible pressures. There are all kinds of opinions, from full support of the Americans to outright hostility, but people are eager to speak their minds. One of the film’s most moving moments came near the end, when a man said (in my rough paraphrase), “The Iraqis are not the enemies of America. America should stop creating enemies for itself and instead create friends. You can never feel safe in the world if you don’t create friends instead of enemies.” I only hope this film helps even a little bit.

Watch the trailer for the film here.

(10/10)

Tagged as: Documentaries, Hot Docs, iraq

Story of a Beautiful Country (South Africa/Canada, Director: Khalo Matabane) — This was a disappointment. Billed as a road movie through the new South Africa (and today marks ten years since the first democratic multiracial elections in the country), it ended up stranding us inside a taxi watching the director converse with people either a little crazy (like the unreformed militant Afrikaner with his M-16) or a little drunk (like the endless interview with an interracial couple it looked like the director met at a nightclub). There was some real insight from a few, and a lot of pointless jabber from most. The truth is that South Africa is a beautiful country, and so a lot of striking images were captured, even through the windscreen, but as a documentary, this failed to live up to my expectations. (6/10)

Army of One (Canada, Director: Sarah Goodman) — Canadian Sarah Goodman was living in New York around the time of 9/11, and noticed the long lineups at army recruiting centres after the tragedy. In this too-short film, she follows three volunteers for more than two years, through basic training and beyond. Of the three, only one is still in the army (and the director informed us at the screening that now-Sergeant Miller has returned home safely from Iraq). We follow the three as they try to find a purpose in their lives, one that the army promises but fails to deliver. The film ends a bit abruptly. I would have loved to see even more. It brought back my own brief experiences in the Canadian military, and sharpened the deep ambivalence I have about the way the army molds people to do a job nobody wants to talk about. There are a lot of good people in the military, and a lot of good things. But there are also many things that aren’t talked about in the recruiting centres, and this film uncovers and lays them bare. (9/10)

Tagged as: iraq, southafrica