Inside Iraq : The Untold Story - Essay Example

Inside Iraq: The Untold Story Why is it important to describe today's situation in Iraq This is the question that someone may ask while listing allthe different documentaries, reports, articles and testimonies from the Middle East. Especially when we consider that 83 journalists have been killed since the beginning of the conflict and 2 are still missing. Is it because the war in Iraq is the reflection of our own failures as democratic nations, to put an end at conflicts Or as a duty to report from a region where our help was not asked and our presence is no more required The director of Inside Iraq: The Untold Story, Mike Shiley has another point of view. As he believes that Iraq is the most important issue in the United States today and as he observed on the news, Iraq is only portrayed through press conferences and bombings, he decided that the story of all the characters of this war should be told on a day by day basis, directly from the field. Through out our evaluation of Mike Shiley's documentary we will keep in mind the first question that we asked ourselves: Why is it important to describe today's situation in Iraq Mike Shiley can be described as a "regular guy". He does not have any specific training of war journalism even if he admits that he always wanted to be a war correspondent. At the beginning of the movie, he gives us his reason to go to Iraq, a simple reason: see by himself what is really going on over there. He will start his journey from Amman, Jordan in a convey heading towards Baghdad where he will meet his Iraqi guide, Heider. Through Shiley's lens, we will then discover everyday life in Baghdad. The suicide bombing, the black market where you can find everything from drugs to weapons - for 25$ at the local gun market, you can buy a rocket propelled grenade launcher - and above all the state of a destroyed city and its civilians. Nevertheless, Shiley's journey doe not end in Baghdad. He explores the Sunni triangle, the northern Kurdish region and the Shiite-controlled South giving us details of the actions taken day by day to rebuild Iraq. We are exposed, for example, to a group of Iraqi workers cleaning landmines, risking their lives every minute, for a $10 per day wage. The movie is a considerable sum of details which present us the clear statement that nothing is black or white. A dictatorship has been destroyed but democracy opened the door to other abuses such as pornography. These details and the way Shiley presents them allow us to make our own opinion of the situation in Iraq. Shiley's approach to the war is very simple but it does not lack of efficiency. How would we see the war, what would we think if we were directly on the field The documentary is shown through his point of view, while filming with his digital camera, but clearly this method is used for us to understand that we could be in his shoes confronted with the same issues. When he rushes to the scene of the car bomb in the beginning of the movie, he makes a terrible mistake. He is told that the strategy of suicide bombers is usually to detonate a second bomb after people gathered around the scene of the first bombing. Maureen Leary describes Shiley's journey in Iraq in her article from thedailypage.com1 as "a war documentary of exceptional humanity". As she states, we can consider that Shiley achieved this goal through his lack of training as a war correspondent linked to his absence of political agenda. He does not travel with all the "barrier of security that surrounds most western journalists". Again, we are shown the point of view of a regular person facing the consequences of a terrible war but not being biased as it is not his fight. In the same article Leary explains that Shiley wanted to becom a soldier after the attack on the World Trade Center and that the film is an attempt to live this life. He is therefore authorized to operate the biggest gun on the Abrams tank during a mission: "Operation Harras and Intimidate". Soldiers fire in a village where there are suspected to be insurgents to frighten them but he then asks how efficient can this mission be as many civilians can be killed and their houses burnt down. A regular man wondering about the efficiency of war strategies. In another article by Mike Francis, Telling Iraq's Stories2, we are confronted with the criticism that Shiley faces with his documentary. The example of a man storming "the stage outraged by the way Shiley described the AK-47" allows us to believe that Shiley's goal is reached: everyone can make his own opinion from the film. As he states: "I wanted both liberals and conservatives to experience the pain of their viewpoints." He does not want to bring any answers but present a difficult situation. His documentary is exceptional because it does not destroy or perpetuate any preconceived notions about war in Iraq, it just gives the report of a journey where a man is faced with situations where no rational answers can be given. The result strikes us with efficiency: like Shiley, we are outraged, touched or powerless at the end of the journey but certainly, we are not the same. Why is it important to describe today's situation in Iraq If we were Shiley we would certainly answer that it helps us examine our beliefs of the U.S. soldiers, the Iraqi people and the future of the Middle East and ask ourselves another question: What is our role in today's world Work Cited Page Francis, Mike. "Telling Iraq's Stories" The Oregonian, December 28th, 2004. Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories. Dir. Mike Shiley. Shidog Films, 2004. Leary, Maureen. "Inside Iraq: The Untold Story" available at http://www.thedailypage.com/going-out/movies/reviews/movieReview.phpintReviewID=889 Telling Iraq's Stories. Summary: A Portland filmmaker tries to show both ends of the political spectrum "the pain of their viewpoints" Portland filmmaker Mike Shiley has documented a truth about post-invasion Iraq. Perhaps not THE truth, but A truth. "I'm just one guy with a camera," he said last week, in advance of two weeks of Portland showings of his documentary "Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories." "This is one person's journey." It's a journey worth taking, but better him than you. Let him stand five feet from the unexploded land mine. Let him shop for guns and grenades at the roadside flea market. Let him join the Army for a midnight patrol in the rough town on the Syrian border. Shiley spent two months in Iraq as a freelancer. He hired himself out to KATU for one month and spent another as a volunteer accompanying Northwest Medical Teams. He did it on his own dime and his own time, which meant that he didn't have to answer to editors, producers or military officers. He wandered into tank turrets, classrooms, Iraqi bomb shelters and churches. He turned the camera on ordinary Iraqis and U.S. soldiers, including Oregon National Guardsmen. He poked into things that journalists and others don't usually stop to examine, and he emerged with a highly personal travelogue that sheds a little light on a complex and volatile situation. He watches a compassionate Oregon National Guard officer speak gently to Iraqi schoolchildren. Yet he notes that many American soldiers can't even say "hello" and "thank you" in Arabic. He invites an anguished Iraqi woman to tell the camera: "I want the world to look at us and see that we are totally destroyed. If they is hoping for democracy and freedom, these things can never happen in this situation." In a climate where complicated issues are often reduced to black-and-white opinions, Shiley said, "I wanted to bring nuance back to the topic." Shiley is in the middle of a multicity tour that has taken him to college campuses and film centers from Pullman, Wash., to Cambridge, Mass. He's found that viewers in the center of the political spectrum come away from the film "pretty happy." But he's heard strong criticism from the opposite ends of the debate, including the angry man who stormed the stage to rant about the way Shiley's film described the AK-47, a rifle that can be found in many Iraqi households. "I don't Michael Moore-it for the left, and I don't Oliver North-it for the right," Shiley said. "I wanted both liberals and conservatives to experience the pain of their viewpoints." Some soldiers and supporters will cringe to see some of the behavior of the U.S. military, from soldiers who rouse a sleepy village by firing cannons in the night, to those who dump boxes of food and useful scrap into an on-base dump, enticing Iraqis to cross through barbed wire to scavenge its contents. But Lake Oswego-based Oregon National Guard Major Mark Shull, who is shown visiting classrooms and hiring Iraqis to cut cane, said he likes the film. "I like Mike's raw honesty and his interpretation of what he sees from a nonmilitary background," Shull said by email this week. "I thought he captured the essence of Iraq." Shiley said he hopes "Inside Iraq" gets full commercial release, but if it doesn't, he'll shoot for getting it on television. He's also pushing to get it into film festivals and expects to continue limited exclusive engagements. He's already recovered the expenses he incurred to travel twice to Iraq and produce the movie. Shiley said his yearning for extreme travel and his aspirations to be a commercial filmmaker drew him to Iraq for each of his two monthlong stints. And, he said, "part of me has always wanted to be a war correspondent." So what's next Shiley didn't hesitate. He knows there are too many untold stories remaining. "I've got to go back." Mike Francis: 503-412-7014; mikefrancis@news.oregonian.com Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories Frustrated with the mainstream media's coverage of the Iraq war and armed only with a digital video camera, a homemade press pass and a contact number, amateur filmmaker Mike Shiley began a two-month journey in December 2003 that resulted in his film Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories. Forthcoming about his lack of journalism and filmmaking credentials, and with no apparent political agenda (though perhaps it could be argued that he is taking a "humanitarian" angle), Shiley captures uniquely personal footage that details the reality of life on the ground in occupied Iraq. The film owes as much to travelogue as documentary, and its decided lack of slickness is part of what makes it so affecting. Traveling without the barrier of security that surrounds most Western journalists, Shiley shows us a Baghdad that has been relieved of a dictator but is also without basic necessities like water, electricity, gas and heating oil. At the Baghdad Technology College, classes in computer science continue, extraordinarily enough, without the aid of actual computers. (An instructor explains that they were looted after the city was liberated.) Shiley also shows us that liberation has spawned open-air markets for pornography from the West and a burgeoning assault-weapons trade. Never shying away from the bleak ironies and complexities of war, Shiley shows American aid workers tending to sick and wounded Iraqis and Kurdish people who are ardent supporters of President Bush. He interviews Iraqi weapons experts who are paid $10 a day to remove landmines and visits a hospital for landmine victims where crayon drawings of tanks and bombs by young victims line the walls of the art room. The footage inside the hospital includes some of the film's most heartrending images, with one young victim explaining that he detonated a landmine while going out to get water. In an interview published on his Web site (www.shidogfilms.com), Shiley says that after Sept. 11 he considered joining the military, and in the film he attempts to live the life of a soldier. He's certified to operate the biggest gun on the Abrams tank so that he can ride along on missions such as "Operation Harass and Intimidate," a nighttime tactic that involves firing a barrage of weapons down the middle of a village suspected to contain insurgents. Shiley shows soldiers who have not been taught even basic Arabic phrases that would enable them to communicate with Iraqi civilians, as well as displays of American wastefulness like the base dump where U.S. troops have discarded tons of unopened groceries and functioning electronics before leaving for home. But he also follows a soldier who employs Iraqi villagers to clear the cane around the base, supplying them much-needed livelihood. Some of the film's most affecting moments are also the most mundane. Shots of Iraqis at markets and magazine stands, of street-food vendors, of soldiers wearing antlers and eating candy canes on Christmas Eve remind us of our commonalities and are all the more poignant when we realize that they are taking place amid bombed-out buildings and an all but nonexistent infrastructure. An evenhanded, compassionate observer, Shiley has made a war documentary of exceptional humanity. Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories screens at the Orpheum Theatre on Friday-Sunday, Dec. 2-4. Shiley will introduce the film and answer questions at every show. -- Maureen Leary Read More