Gunner Palace
August 2005 Reviewed by: Marc Mickelson Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

The 1990-91 Gulf War, with its embedded journalists and live satellite feeds, changed the way the media covers wars and made movies like Gunner Palace possible. Documenting a year in Iraq through the eyes of US foot soldiers from the 2/3 Field Artillery, the movie shows the unique dangers of this new Gulf War and the complexity of any modern conflict. Soldiers have to deal with an enemy that fights covertly, blending in with sympathetic citizens, sometimes killing sympathetic citizens in order to heighten the chaos. This is a media-aware enemy that's fully able to use coverage of the war to reach the minds of the people back home. The Iraq War might be the first in history during which combatants had to worry about something as seemingly mundane as traffic, with its prospect of IEDs and suicide bombings. The ever-present sand and scorching sun only add to the burden.

Needless to say, any facade of order is a very thin one, and Gunner Palace conveys this by giving the audience a soldier's-eye view that's rife with the unique uncertainty that war breeds. We see soldiers at dangerous work and at play, the latter acting as a release valve for the former, and we gain appreciation for the Iraqis who are helping the US military, as they are obvious targets but don't have the same firepower or protection as the troops. Being an interpreter in Iraq for the US Army has to be the most dangerous job on the planet right now.

Seventeen additional scenes are worthwhile extra features, and a few, including a pair that juxtaposes two soldiers' routes into the Army, are profound. The picture is at once clear and then grainy, but it conveys well the heat and unique light of the desert. Most of the movie is dialogue, so the 5.1-channel sound is of little consequence. There is no director's commentary -- a good choice. The soldiers know far more about this war than the filmmakers, and theirs are the voices we want to hear.

Gunner Palace takes its name from one of its main locations, Uday Hussein's Azimiya Palace, which US troops use as living quarters. The title is an oxymoron that captures the unique energy of this movie. The overwhelming thought I had while seeing it was not for victory in Iraq but rather for the well-being of the soldiers, who are all so young. "I'm not defending my country. That's why you become a soldier," says one. It's a line that has increasingly greater force as the war slogs on and more soldiers and civilians die. Even so, Gunner Palace doesn't make any one point about the Iraq War -- patriotism and pride are as represented as disillusionment and fear -- and that makes the war seem all the more complicated.

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