Wednesday, June 08, 2005
The Dreams of Sparrows and First Person Accounts of Iraq in Various Media, etc.
This article in Wired mentions a movie called, The Dreams of Sparrows, a documentary about life in occupied Iraq. Here's the blurb on the film's official site:
Might be informative ... I just heard about it, so this post isn't an endorsement. The Fallujah stuff sounds interesting, if nothing else.
Also, has anyone seen Gunner Palace? -- it came to a theater near me but I didn't catch it. These from-the-soldier's-point-of-view nonfiction works often turn out to be jingoism fests, but you never know.
Gunner Palace's trailer may have put me off, but, for example, I read a book about the initial Iraq invasion called Generation Kill because Cursor had made some provocative comments about it several months ago. Taking a look at Generation Kill's cover and name, one would quickly judge it to be total garbage, but the book is definitely worth reading: it includes chilling first-hand accounts of the murder of Iraqi civilians at check points and so forth.
The Dreams of Sparrows follows Iraqi director Hayder Mousa Daffar and his team of contributing filmmakers as they share their vision of life in Baghdad under the US occupation. [ ... ]
After the capture of Saddam, Daffar's search for the truth takes him through all walks of life in Iraq, and finally into the arts and culture of Baghdad, drawing the viewer into powerful encounters with Iraqi painters, writers and filmmakers. As the film continues, the interviews veer towards the politics of occupation and resistance, concluding with the battle over Falluja and the devastating death of one of the crew members. In somber self interviews made following the production, the filmmakers reveal the dramatic changes in their beliefs caused not only by the situation in Iraq, but also the process of documenting it.
Might be informative ... I just heard about it, so this post isn't an endorsement. The Fallujah stuff sounds interesting, if nothing else.
Also, has anyone seen Gunner Palace? -- it came to a theater near me but I didn't catch it. These from-the-soldier's-point-of-view nonfiction works often turn out to be jingoism fests, but you never know.
Gunner Palace's trailer may have put me off, but, for example, I read a book about the initial Iraq invasion called Generation Kill because Cursor had made some provocative comments about it several months ago. Taking a look at Generation Kill's cover and name, one would quickly judge it to be total garbage, but the book is definitely worth reading: it includes chilling first-hand accounts of the murder of Iraqi civilians at check points and so forth.
