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| Directed by: James Longley |
DVD release: 2007
Released by: Typecast ReleasingDolby
Digital 5.1
Widescreen |
Imagine living like this: You wake up to the
sound of scattered gunfire. One block over, a building is on fire, and next to it is
another that has been leveled, but the rubble remains. Overhead, helicopters hover and
black smoke wafts. Later, a funeral procession goes down your street -- one of your
neighbors has been killed.
This is the Iraq that Iraq in Fragments depicts --
not of the soldiers and their mission but of the people who live amidst war every day. The
movie is split into three parts. The first follows Mohammed, a fatherless boy living in
Baghdad with his uncle and grandmother -- amidst squalor and constant danger. The second
part probes the mindset of Mohammed Al Sadr's Shia army, where religious fervor fuels
resistance and distrust of America is rampant. Part three shows what life is like among
the Kurds -- outsiders in Iraqi society who cautiously support the American presence for
the freedom it has brought them. The conclusion that so many Iraqis have about the war?
"It's for the oil."
The widescreen image is very crisp, though the nature of
the movie means that some of the camera work is jittery. It's obvious that some of the
footage was obtained at great danger to the people behind the camera. The omission of
narration gives the movie a matter-of-fact feel. You simply watch events as they unfold.
The dialogue is in Arabic and Kurdish, but there are subtitles in five different
languages.
An entire DVD of extras includes two short features of
great interest. "Suri's Mother" tells the story of a ten-year-old boy's struggle
with HIV and the Iraqi medical system after the war has begun, and "Iraq Before the
War" presents the foreboding comments of Representative Jim McDermott one year before
the fighting began. There are also student films that broaden the picture of life in Iraq
today.
Iraq in Fragments pushes your empathic boundaries.
It forces you to step outside the political debate over justification for this war and the
definition of success and speculate how you would feel in similar circumstances. While
this war may indeed be about Iraqi oil, Iraq in Fragments reminds us that it has
utterly transformed the Iraqi people too. |
