Iraq films on front line

19.02.2007

Blast ... Iraqis stand next to a building heavily damaged in a car bomb explosion in Baghdad, Iraq, on Sunday / AP

FOUR years after filmmaker Michael Moore was booed off the stage for protesting the war in Iraq, movies about the conflict are poised to take centre stage at this month`s 79th Academy Awards ceremony.

Moore was roundly condemned for making a political statement in 2003 when he collected his Oscar for Bowling for Columbine, accusing US President George W. Bush of waging a "fictitious" war.

But in a reflection of the changing mood against the war, Oscars voters have embraced two documentaries which paint a bleakly critical picture of US policy in Iraq, Iraq in Fragments and My Country, My Country.

Both films are among the five nominees for the best documentary Oscar at this year`s awards on February 25, where they are up against the favourite, Al Gore`s environmental rallying cry, An Inconvenient Truth.

For Iraq in Fragments, director James Longley spent two years in Iraq, and in shooting 300 hours of footage he tried to capture the effects of the conflict on everyday Iraqis.

The film that emerges - three 30-minute segments reflecting the lives of Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis - is a startling portrait of a country wrestling with the horrors of war.

"Most of the people we see are people who are mostly not in combat," Longley said in a recent interview. "The film is not so much about the Americans as it is about the Iraqis and the big issues they`re dealing with in their country."

Longley, who believes the US should withdraw from the country, said current policy is having "the opposite effect people think it is."

"It has served to divide the country against itself," said the 34-year-old Seattle native. "The Iraqis have managed their affairs for thousands of years, and they can in our absence."

Longley is now keen to make a similar documentary about Iran, believing that the US is preparing for a military strike against Iraq`s neighbour, citing the failure to withdraw US troops from Iraq as evidence.

"Why are we staying? My guess is we want to keep bases in the country, maybe using Iraq as a base for a further conflict with Iran, which the United States is pushing toward very rapidly," he said.

"The problem the United States has is we`ve forgotten what sovereignty means, what international law means."

For My Country, My Country, director Laura Poitras chose to focus on a Sunni doctor, Dr. Riyadh, who was running in Iraq`s January 2005 elections, to highlight the challenges faced by ordinary Iraqis.

Poitras, who describes the film as a "critique of the occupation," said she had wanted to make a film after becoming increasingly frustrated by the level of debate in the US, which she says ignored Iraqis caught in the middle.

"I wanted to understand the situation on the ground and from the position of the people who are in this war, and I felt that to understand it from that perspective would shed light from all political perspectives," she said.

"It is also a film that I think will challenge political perspectives from both sides, because it really is, in a sense, a celebration of democracy and at the same time it`s a critique of the occupation."

The fundamental clash of culture between America and Iraq had left the United States isolated in every sense, Poitras said, with diplomats virtually imprisoned in their Baghdad embassy.

"The fact is that the US is trying to occupy or bring democracy to this country with very little knowledge of the country and the people, and I felt that I couldn`t tell the story without telling that perspective."

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