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1

Honestly, isn't it possible that the lack of attention given to the film has more to do with the saturated market for left-leaning documentaries and general media fatigue regarding the Iraq war?

I am sure it's a great film, and I'm sure some amount of America's self-obsession comes into play. But I can't blame people for the desire to take a break from what has been a relentless string of excellent, well-intentioned--but depressing--documentaries.

Posted by Matthew | January 23, 2007 11:27 AM
2

Charles,

I can only speak for myself, but I didn't see Iraq in Fragments because it looked uber-depressing.

I've marched in countless demonstrations, called Cantwell and Murray repeatedly (thank you Jim McDermott for taking the lead in opposition), voted, written letters to friends and family asking them to vote and done everything I can think of to stop the war.

I'm well aware of the horrors of everyday life in Iraq now, and if it were up to me Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and all other the other neo-con parasites would be in prison for war crimes.

Seeing this film would only make me feel worse about a situation that I can do nothing more about.

Posted by Original Andrew | January 23, 2007 11:33 AM
3

The Hollywood liberals in the Academy have no love for Bush or this war. I'm sure they would have nominated the film even if, or especially if, the elections hadn't gone against the Repugs.

Posted by keshmeshi | January 23, 2007 11:35 AM
4

I'm not sure this qualifies as roaring praise, but Nathan Lane did praise Longley's film in Seattle Weekly, and I seriously did shout it out as the best Seattle film at Sundance: "a gorgeous tone poem drawn from about 300 hours of incredibly privileged footage—the cameraman literally rolled out of cars during firefights to avoid bullets, and captured more unfamiliar emotional violence in the life of a young Baghdad boy whose ostensibly kindly surrogate-father employer keeps threatening to 'roast him alive.'" Also, I publicized Andy Spletzer's ace Sundance bloggery for The Stranger. I don't expect a cease-fire in the newspaper wars, but hey, in war, we all know what the first casualty is.

Posted by Tim Appelo | January 23, 2007 11:54 AM
5

That's true, Tim. I was happy to see that Brian Miller's outright hostility to Longley's approach in Gaza Strip didn't color the coverage of the film. It deserves every ounce of praise it received.

Posted by annie | January 23, 2007 12:17 PM
6

"No one wanted to support a movie that looked at the situation in Iraq completely from the other side of the story."

More likely, Charles, is that few wanted to laud a documentary that took an apolitical stance and presented a human story mostly removed from it's political context.

I happen to like the film, but I understand the disappointment of many of my friends who see it as something of a throwback to the age of the politically disengaged artist.

One wonders if it is the films sublime aesthetics that earned it the oscar nod or rather it's neutrality with respect to contested narratives of the place of the Sadr militia, the US intervention, and baathist orthodoxy in the political context of Iraq.

Posted by kinaidos | January 23, 2007 12:33 PM
7

I saw this movie twice when it was here in Seattle- once at the Varsity and once at the Crest- and I have to agree with Charles that there is simply no valid excuse for having missed this absolutely extraordinary film.

I dragged a whole posse of peers to the Crest showing, many of whom initially tried to give me the lines that they expected the movie to be either "too depressing" or "not political enough." After they saw the film, they were all strong enough to admit how wrong they were. The film is a lot LESS depressing than the average daily NY Times story. The people featured in the film are genuine, fascinating, and more hopeful than they have any right to be. Similarly, while the film is not "political" in our familiar Yankee left-right red-blue sense of the word, it does show people deeply involved in a political process, and it draws close to some major political players, inlcluding Moqtada Al-Sadr, the Mahdi army, and scenes from passionate local debates and elections.

I know I sound like a cheerleader, but I'm telling you, Iraq in Fragments is one of the most amazing movies I've ever seen- a phenomenal documentation of a world going to hell. If you care about our government, you must see this film. If you care about people, you must see this film. If you care about cinema, you must see this film.

Posted by Gurldoggie | January 23, 2007 12:54 PM
8

Ah, Charles. The P-I's Robert Jamieson wrote two essays last year on "Iraq in Fragments," the last one in November, saying it "exudes a heartfelt intelligence, revealing bonds that people universally share," and earlier in July. It was also reviewed in the P-I's What's Happening. Still, your point's a good one. Not enough attention has been paid. Before writing that the Stranger is the only publication celebrating this filmmaker, however, you could have looked it up. Google makes that easy, doesn't it? Then you could say aside from Jamieson and a few stabs at a gesture, nobody but the Stranger has been solidly on board, and we'd all nod sagely.

Posted by Regina Hackett | January 23, 2007 3:00 PM
9


"Google makes that easy, doesn't it? "

and many bloggers make it easy by providing links....

Posted by herethere | January 23, 2007 6:53 PM

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