July 12, 2007
Iraq in Fragments
How can you cut up a country?
James Longley's Iraq in Fragments is full of motion, and not merely because it was shot on a small digital camera, unmoored and tripod-less. From Sunni and Shia boroughs of post-invasion Baghdad to Kurdish communities in Northern Iraq, it captures a city in motion with people, a country in transition within history, cultures in flux within themselves. There is commotion too: the sounds of the city resonate in stereo, at least until the film reaches the calm silence of the countryside. Meanwhile, an everpresent narration establishes inward, psychological stories, as Annie Wagner writes, “burrowing into the minds of its characters through asynchronous voice-over, provided by the subjects themselves.” Motion, commotion, and at last, emotion: a broad range of sadness, longing; anger, righteousness; optimism, hope, wonder, all spread out over three sequences.
With all this moving going on, I was moved too. I caught it twice in theaters: the first time at Bellingham, WA’s True/False West festival with producer John Sinno in attendance; the second at Seattle’s Varsity theater, where Longley himself and a fellow editor fielded questions from the audience (damn the ubiquity of the auteur theory for allowing me to forget the name of the editor!). All three -- Sinno, Longley, and the editor -- stressed that Iraq in Fragments was produced with the big screen in mind, processed onto 35mm film with Dolby-rendered sound.
The DVD is finally out this week. I haven't seen it yet, though I'm eager too (consider me apart of the DVD generation Andy Horbal discussed recently). But not too eager -- I still can’t shake the thought that Iraq in Fragments will lose something on television. As a film buff with an often unbendable political bent, I usually privilege the content of films over their form. With Iraq in Fragments, I was surprised to find myself so utterly struck by the film's firmly cinematic aesthetic.
The photography of Iraq in Fragments is what is so striking. It had me melting like butter in awe, muttering like a scrawny, pale Fabio, "I can't believe it's not film." You half expect Haskell Wexler’s name to spring up in the ends credits, it's so beautiful and immediate; but no, it’s all James Longley and his Panasonic digital camera. Indeed, Iraq in Fragments is a film that can’t be spoken of without referring to the technology that made possible its production. Film critic Steven Boone calls it “the first camcorder movie with no excuses,” and tells the tale of the technology in an informative and indispensable piece, The Quiet Miracle. The eponymous miracle, says Boone, “isn’t that film is dead, but that an authentic working class cinema has a shot at more than token, Focus/Weinstein-moderated access to mainstream audiences.” It’s almost enough to make you think about the future of cinema aesthetics in utopian terms, as if Murray Bookchin’s ideas about a “post-scarcity anarchism” -- technology providing the opportunity for a self-governed society -- could be applied via camcorder.
Not everybody’s felt as I have about Iraq in Fragments. Some have found the film wanting in journalistic content, and I suppose it is if you’re accustomed to the infotainment of the nightly news. Another, smarter criticism was raised by an audience member at the screening attended by Longley; the person felt that the sequence structure of the film perpetuates the conventional division of Iraq into three parts -- Sunni, Shia, and Kurd. Longley acknowledged this criticism as valid, adding that to break the country up along such lines is ridiculous, given that every area of the country is so demographically mixed. Someone also asked Longley about the conspicuous lack of women in his film, to which he admitted having filmed and edited a fourth sequence following the attempts of an Iraqi mother to secure health care. It’s played several films festivals as a short film called Sari's Mother and is now included on the DVD.
The strongest critique of all came from Michael Atkinson while he was still writing for the Village Voice. He found Iraq in Fragments
edited within an inch of Disney's Living Desert horseshit; hardly a minute of Longley's film goes by without a cheap narrative-building suture between two mutually exclusive moments, destroying his movie's sense of veracity in the process. (That it strategically climaxes with Kurds singing the praises of the occupying army is another thorn in the eye.) So of course it won three prizes at Sundance, where audiences are yet learning about cinematic syntax versus the possibility of truthfulness.
Atkinson is apparently smarter than Sundance audiences, and smarter than me too. I encountered his review before I watched the film a second time, and made sure to watch closely for “cheap narrative-building sutures.” My knowledge of cinematic syntax must be lacking, as I found little in the way of narrative at all.
The editting clearly privileges certain emotions and themes -- the opening of the first sequence, "Mohammed of Baghdad," is all Mohammed's eyes, as if they are a mirror for the new Baghdad. Other times the sound matches the image, than cuts to an image obviously not synchronous with the sound, suggesting two shots are of the same moment when they are not. In "Sadr’s South," Muslim clerics give speeches while the camera cuts to crowds craning their necks, or wanders through buildings while the audio of political meetings echoes off the walls. As for the Kurds, the "thorn in the eye" ending, I didn't find it so simple. The Kurds may be removed far from Baghdad -- the soundtrack goes suddenly hushed in the dustswept countryside -- but they have as many internal rifts as the capital city. When an old man explains, "The future of Iraq is in three pieces," Longley interjects a child's pondering voice: "How can you cut up a country?"
The question might be asked of Iraq in Fragments itself. How can you cut up your footage? This is what I figure Atkinson means by “cheap narrative-building,” though to my mind (or eye) the heavy editing makes itself obvious, canceling out any possible underhanded cutting-room manipulation in the process. If Atkinson could point to a specific misrepresentation, understanding his objection would be easier; but his general complaint comes across as more of an aesthetic quibble than the political one I think he meant to be -- and his righteous rhetorical ire doesn’t help.
Of course, if Atkinson knew what Longley's subjects actually thought of his film, that would change everything. At the Seattle screening, Longley admitted his film's subjects hadn't seen the Iraq in Fragments; the situation has grown worse since Longley left, and Iraq remains too violent to return to. I think that remains a standing criticism of not only Longley, but all Americans: until we know what Iraqis think, until the occupation ends and the conflicts can resolve on their own, this will remain a fragmented world. I believe Longley's film accepts that responsibility, brings Americans one step closer towards a world of reconciliation, and renews cinema's role in that struggle. An honest look at fragmentation always does.
For more on why I liked Iraq in Fragments so much, please see my April 2006 report from the True/False West Film Festival.
