My Country, My Country
The prevailing trend in documentary filmmaking is to abandon the illusion of objectivity. Michael Moore might be most responsible for this development, stepping out from behind the camera to be an active participant in the filmmaking itself, in the entertainment that his movies provide, and in helping to shape the events that his films portray. This has been Moore’s shtick since Roger and Me. Kirby Dick follows Moore’s general lead with his recent This Film is Not Yet Rated, and does so with a great measure of success.
The astounding feats of Ken Burns have also played a factor. Not content to merely record history, the Burns approach—as epitomized in his Civil War masterwork—is to impose a moral from the outside, either through scripted narration or talking-head commentary. The U.S. vs. John Lennon, for instance, also released today, adopts this approach, artificially connecting the Nixon era with the present Bush administration.
Granted, every film, documentary or otherwise, is subjective. We only see the material the director wants us to see, and we see it all from only one point of view. But clearly, not all documentaries are created equal. Those with scripted narrations by default add a dimension of editorial commentary. Talking heads—even when selected for their broad range of perspectives, as in Lennon—inevitably betray the filmmaker’s bias to some degree. When soundtracks and graphics are added, the full range of cinematic tools is manipulatively in play.
Still, My Country, My Country is a refreshing and compelling throwback to old-fashioned documentary filmmaking, an approach in which the filmmaker documents but does not (for the most part) participate, and whose filmed and edited sequences provide all the commentary, irony, and insight we need to interpret events.
The subject of director Laura Poitras’ film is a Baghdad physician whom Poitras met while visiting Abu Ghraib. Working alone in the field, doing her own camera and sound work, Poitras follows Dr. Riyadh from July of 2004 through the national Iraqi elections in January of 2005. Riyadh, a devout Muslim, is on the minority Sunni ticket, which takes a trouncing. The story of his candidacy brings Poitras—and us—into contact with the doctor’s patients, his six children and wife, coalition troops and officers, journalists, UN elections officials, and an Australian contracting firm hired to provide security for the elections.
This is a vision of Iraq in which no one is particularly happy, and which offers little sense of joy or redemption. As Riyadh declares his candidacy and the election draws nearer, he acknowledges the “added risk” this brings his family—and as it is, Riyadh’s family can scarcely leave their apartment without witnessing some assault or another. Even come election day, they still have no electricity or running water. All the while, IEDs, bombs and gunfire rattle the streets outside. In one particularly telling scene, Riyadh’s wife casually sits on the couch swatting flies, oblivious to the automatic weapons fire just outside the draped windows.
The Australian security forces are also neither Rambos nor knockoffs of late fellow Aussie Steve Irwin. They are sober, tense, and often frightened. There are no hoo-rah Marines in Poitras’ film, either, nor are there protesting peaceniks. Instead, the soldiers we meet are all clearly affected by the tension between constant danger, the desperate conditions of the Iraqis they are in country to aid, and the political stakes of an election on which their future, with Iraq’s, literally hinges. During one orientation session with the troops, an officer shows pictures of two Iraqi members of his reconnaissance team, killed by an IED. He breaks into tears and struggles to convince the troops that it’s not all danger and bloodshed, that “You can have some fun” while on tour in Iraq, his voicing quavering all the while.
The soundtrack was composed by the Iraqi singer Kadhum al Sahir. As a result, it provides atmosphere and relevance without summoning up a Western interpretive grid. To the extent that music is purely universal in its modes of communication, al Sahir’s music helps us read events, yes, but in a way that is indigenous to the setting. The translated lyrics to the movie’s theme, “Oh My Country,” are a call to “love, peace, intellect and construction,” a call to unity, a plea to see Iraq “smile some day.”
Does Poitras have her own bias? Yes, undoubtedly. The project was, in her own words, “motivated by a sense of despair about the contradictions of the U. S. occupation of Iraq and its project to implement democracy in the Middle East through the use of military force.” Significantly, the lone ray of hope to come through in Poitras’s film—and a mightily bright shining one it is—is the radiant joy on the face of Riyadh’s wife and daughters as they triumphantly return from voting that momentous January day.
Oddly, Poitras’ puts a human face on civilians, soldiers, politicians, and contractors yet never comes in contact with any armed militants, resistance fighters, or terrorists. Why? The film never tells us, so we are left to speculate.
Yet Poitras does us a great favor in bringing us far closer to a sadly real Baghdad than either CNN or Fox has done to date.
The astounding feats of Ken Burns have also played a factor. Not content to merely record history, the Burns approach—as epitomized in his Civil War masterwork—is to impose a moral from the outside, either through scripted narration or talking-head commentary. The U.S. vs. John Lennon, for instance, also released today, adopts this approach, artificially connecting the Nixon era with the present Bush administration.
Granted, every film, documentary or otherwise, is subjective. We only see the material the director wants us to see, and we see it all from only one point of view. But clearly, not all documentaries are created equal. Those with scripted narrations by default add a dimension of editorial commentary. Talking heads—even when selected for their broad range of perspectives, as in Lennon—inevitably betray the filmmaker’s bias to some degree. When soundtracks and graphics are added, the full range of cinematic tools is manipulatively in play.
Still, My Country, My Country is a refreshing and compelling throwback to old-fashioned documentary filmmaking, an approach in which the filmmaker documents but does not (for the most part) participate, and whose filmed and edited sequences provide all the commentary, irony, and insight we need to interpret events.
The subject of director Laura Poitras’ film is a Baghdad physician whom Poitras met while visiting Abu Ghraib. Working alone in the field, doing her own camera and sound work, Poitras follows Dr. Riyadh from July of 2004 through the national Iraqi elections in January of 2005. Riyadh, a devout Muslim, is on the minority Sunni ticket, which takes a trouncing. The story of his candidacy brings Poitras—and us—into contact with the doctor’s patients, his six children and wife, coalition troops and officers, journalists, UN elections officials, and an Australian contracting firm hired to provide security for the elections.
This is a vision of Iraq in which no one is particularly happy, and which offers little sense of joy or redemption. As Riyadh declares his candidacy and the election draws nearer, he acknowledges the “added risk” this brings his family—and as it is, Riyadh’s family can scarcely leave their apartment without witnessing some assault or another. Even come election day, they still have no electricity or running water. All the while, IEDs, bombs and gunfire rattle the streets outside. In one particularly telling scene, Riyadh’s wife casually sits on the couch swatting flies, oblivious to the automatic weapons fire just outside the draped windows.
The Australian security forces are also neither Rambos nor knockoffs of late fellow Aussie Steve Irwin. They are sober, tense, and often frightened. There are no hoo-rah Marines in Poitras’ film, either, nor are there protesting peaceniks. Instead, the soldiers we meet are all clearly affected by the tension between constant danger, the desperate conditions of the Iraqis they are in country to aid, and the political stakes of an election on which their future, with Iraq’s, literally hinges. During one orientation session with the troops, an officer shows pictures of two Iraqi members of his reconnaissance team, killed by an IED. He breaks into tears and struggles to convince the troops that it’s not all danger and bloodshed, that “You can have some fun” while on tour in Iraq, his voicing quavering all the while.
The soundtrack was composed by the Iraqi singer Kadhum al Sahir. As a result, it provides atmosphere and relevance without summoning up a Western interpretive grid. To the extent that music is purely universal in its modes of communication, al Sahir’s music helps us read events, yes, but in a way that is indigenous to the setting. The translated lyrics to the movie’s theme, “Oh My Country,” are a call to “love, peace, intellect and construction,” a call to unity, a plea to see Iraq “smile some day.”
Does Poitras have her own bias? Yes, undoubtedly. The project was, in her own words, “motivated by a sense of despair about the contradictions of the U. S. occupation of Iraq and its project to implement democracy in the Middle East through the use of military force.” Significantly, the lone ray of hope to come through in Poitras’s film—and a mightily bright shining one it is—is the radiant joy on the face of Riyadh’s wife and daughters as they triumphantly return from voting that momentous January day.
Oddly, Poitras’ puts a human face on civilians, soldiers, politicians, and contractors yet never comes in contact with any armed militants, resistance fighters, or terrorists. Why? The film never tells us, so we are left to speculate.
Yet Poitras does us a great favor in bringing us far closer to a sadly real Baghdad than either CNN or Fox has done to date.
posted by Greg Wright at 11:12 AM
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