A Critical Evaluation of a Screening Event - The Kurdish Winter - Movie Review Example

THE KURDISH WINTER College The Kurdish Winter The film “The Kurdish Winter” revolves the life of Kurdish refugees, political prisoners, leaders, politicians and the ordinary suffering people. I took the opportunity after the death of Saddam to visit Iraq and to cover the major crimes that had the media had ignored for long. My aim was to cover the stories to tell the world about the effects of war in Iraq and the political war that had led to the suffering of people in Iraq. The timeline, the facts and the scenarios portrayed to the kind of social and political issues that underpinned the suffering of the people during the period of the war. Having organized a viewing audience, I have been able to recap the entire experience of producing this film from gathering of preliminary information to the viewer experience during the film show. This film, largely, conforms to the kind of literature that focuses on the issues that the people faced the Kurdish society. From a critical point of view, the film is a true screening of the facts and the life of the Kurdish people. As the director of this film, I, sneaked into Iraq two weeks after the death of Saddam Hussein. Since I felt as part of Kurdish people, I was closely watching the problems of this part of the Iraq society. I shortly escaped a chemical attack during of the political wars and stayed as a refugee thereafter. This was the reason why I was excited but a little afraid to visit Iraq shortly after the death of Saddam Hussein. I wanted to be the first person to screen a film in Baghdad after the removal of the great dictator. The reason why I had taken long before recording such a film is because it would have been illegal to watch such a film during the reign of this leader. Such films were considered as sabotage of the government or a show of the highest level of traitorship (Wien, 2012). The context of the film is truthful since it depicts the situation in Iraq during the reign of Saddam Hussein. Everyone was supposed to dance to the tune of the leaders and government criticism was highly condemned. They were supposed to speak positively about the government and to cooperate even if the government laws were oppressive. In the contemporary literature, Saddam Hussein is categorized as one of the worst dictators in the history of the world. On this basis, the films criticism of dictatorship is valid and acceptable. The film focuses on the Kurdish city and the people who existed on the post-Saddam era. The film represents the kind of suffering that the people had faced as a result of the war. When I visited Iraq, I was surprised by the life condition of the people in this city. There was evidence of many refugees’ camps and under staved people the memories of such sights as scaring and depressing. This was the main reason why I felt it was important to show the world the effects of the war by providing an example of the people who had faced the highest height of suffering as a result of a tug of war that was only relevant for the political heads (Wien, 2012). Innocent people suffered for issues that they did not understand. They were in such a remote location that they would not even understand the cause of the war. On this view, I bring out the innocence of the people who suffer during a period of war. There is a concession that most of the Iraq victims who suffered during the war between Bush and Saddam Hussein were innocent and had nothing to do with the war period. Judging from the work of other scholars, it is clear that there is a great similarity between the work in this film and the post-Iraqi construction by modern scholars. The timeline of this movie adds to the strength of this film in addressing the issues that existed in the Kurdish city. The film is recorded during the post-Saddam period of the Iraqi history. During the period of Saddam Hussein, the issues facing the people of Iraq received little media attention. The government ensured that these issues remained concealed as part of forcing the public to remain loyal to the dictatorial government. No media covers would dare to expose such issues and those who had a clue about it remained quiet. Indeed, many of the viewers were so willing to comment on the courageous nature of the director. One of the viewers I interviewed after the film said that the film was a true reflection of the events on the ground based on the fact that he was a survivor of the Saddam reign. Those who were brave enough to condemn such actions disappeared from the public never to be found again. There was evidence of media suppression and many journalists were imprisoners during this time. In this film, some of the prisoners are journalists who were considered traitors of the government (Barzanji, 2013). This oppression of the media was something that has been condemned in vast literature. Research shows that most of the Iraqi journalist reported what the government wanted and not what they thought was important. However, the film is dated after the end of dictatorship and a time when the media was slowly gaining conscience. At least, it was a period when the media could speak against the government and war and represent the plight of the people. For this reason, the film can be judged as truthful by focussing on its relevant timeline and its contribution to the news coverage after the end of the reign of a dictator. Based on a critical comment from two of the viewers, I believe the political-social impact of the war was well captured. However, due to the sensitivity of the theme of the film, one of the viewers agreed with me that it was a nice idea not to display explicit scenes of Saddam and George Bush. During the reign of Saddam Hussein, acts of terrorism resulted to political tension between them and the US (Ajami, 2013). The film depicts Saddam Hussein and George Bush as the leaders in the frontline of the war. While they initiated war, they failed to consider the effect that this would have on the common people and the long term impacts of these wars in the society. They blindly pursued their political interests and pushed away diplomacy which would have resulted in less pain in the society. Indeed, the film marked a new period for the media to cover those who remained in the background during the time of the way and the reverse the way things were at the time of the war. In the war period, as the film depicts, the warring leaders were the top icons in the media while those who were seriously affected by the war remained hidden and little was said about them. As the director of this film, I had to have in mind the way the US president and the Iraq leaders appeared in the first pages of the newspapers during the war, while those who suffered received a lot of attention. It was nearly impossible to shoot the film without doing background studies on some of the aspects of the way especially the refugees. A number of researchers have featured the slum life among most Kurds who had fled from the regions that were affected by the war. Resneck and Yankov (2012) are among the various scholars who have covered the life in the refugee camps. After the Syria war lasted for over 20 months, most Syrian citizens sought shelter in the Kurdish refugee’s camps. Over 30,000 people lived in a small camp such as the Domiz where food and clothes, leave alone medication was something rare to find. These scholars also expose the severity of the war that claimed over 40,000 lives some dying of guns while others died due to poor conditions in the refugee camps. On this note, the film presentation of facts augers well with the work of other authors, manifesting its credibility as a factual coverage. It does not come by surprise that the film acts as an affirmation to what people have been receiving from other media platforms regarding Kurds and the war. Most viewers were perplexed by the manner in which I was able to win confidence of the Kurdish interviewees in the film. It was indeed a painstaking endeavour to find good subjects for film interviews. More difficult was to win confidence and to make the film interview subjects illustrate the truth about their experiences without breaking down emotionally or exaggerating their experiences. Nevertheless, other scholars have depicted the experiences of the Kurdish people I interviewed in the film elsewhere through research. Kelly (2013) is among the people who covered the matter underpinning the famous Kurdish genocide. In this war, Saddam Hussein used poisonous to attack the people, a war that resulted in the death of many Kurdish people. Just like in the film, Kelly portrays the autocratic leadership that resulted in the death of many people in Iraq. The leaders pursue personal interests without minding the plight of the people. This is a sign of weak leadership, which not only takes advantage of innocent people but also one that does not care about the society and its welfare, a fact that was well depicted in the film. In the film, I focused mainly on the suffering of children in the refugee camps. The greater portion of the film employs child characters, who contribute to theme of suffering and victimization of the society at this time. Murad was particularly saddened by the large number of disabled children in the refugees’ camps as he was going past some of these camps. Most of the children were physically disabled, malnourished or extra thin, depicting the height of suffering of the young people in the refugees camps. It amuses many how the film somehow managed to get the children to perform so well in this film. The children staged a strong position, which was my deliberate move to expose this group of the society. This seems in line with my idea to bring to attention those people who had remained behind the cameras during the time of the war (Green et al., 2012). Most of the children in this film are disabled and they appear to come from poverty stricken families. This kind of portrayal makes the film more eye-catching and allows the viewers to draw a mental picture of the life status in the refugee camps. On this note, the film as much as possible tried to cover the real life of the people in these regions. An omission of the children life in these areas would have made the film quite weak and unreasonable. The suffering of children during the time of the Iraq war is an issue that has attracted a lot of attention among many researchers in the contemporary society. This period marked a time when many families moved from their homes to run away the war that was looming in the boundary regions. The consequences of such a sudden departure from home was severe and beyond human estimation. This was a time most children had to abandon schools and stay at home. In the refugee camps, it was quite difficult for them to access any formal education and they had to survive at home (Denborough, 2012). It is clear that few international bodies focused on these people since they were mildly covered in the media. The Saddam Hussein leadership would not have tolerated any international organization bringing aid to these refugees. The people there survived from little food they had, leading to malnutrition period of the children. Children born during this time had to meet a harsh reality when it was impossible for women to assist their own children. Scholars point out that woman could hardly breast feed. Resultantly, just like the film portrays, many children suffered from hunger, disability and malnutrition diseases. The film is a comprehensive coverage of the situation that children had to live with in the Kurdish camps. The coverage of the women oppression in the film is an issue that adds to the credibility of the film. The film exposes the nature of violence against women and sees women as the major victims of the genocide. This marked a period of suffering for many Kurdish women at a time when male dominance was at the highest peak. Apart from death of many women during their pregnancy period, more of them suffered rape even from those who were meant to protect them. Women had to should the burden of bearing children at a time when the atmosphere was panicky and it was difficult to feed these children. The confessions of the victims of this period depict the hardships that women went through during a period of shortage of nursing care. For instance, a woman by the name Zohal bore a son during this period (Grossman & OBrien, 2006). She states that this was a time when there was little nursing care as nursing units were scarce and there were few resources to take care of a young child. In her own opinion, she felt that bearing children at this time was a great burden for her in-laws. Also, there is evidence that many men died during this period, resulting to new family structures where single women were the breadwinners. In the film, most of the view points from the political leaders show that women were the most affected members of the family during the war. However, it is clear that some issues are omitted in the film, which probably would have contributed to the construction of the Kurdish community during this period of the war. For instance, the concept of ethno genocide is barely covered in these films (Brunstetter, 2014). The death of the ethnic aspect of the community does not occur to the minds of the partisans of this film. However, it is an important aspect of the Kurdish people that resulted in their time in the foreign camps. Many authors refer to this period as a time of the ethnical disintegration, when people lost their cultures, values and even language. Since they had to live in a new environment, they were supposed to conform to the new environment and escape from their common places (Katzman, 2014). As a result, the lost their traditional values and adopted new behaviours. Social separation resulted to loss of cultural cohesion that had existed before. Most people ran as far as they could after the emergency evacuation. Some people had to lose their children who later settled in different regions and learnt new cultures. Although the film is truthful, its weakness lies in failing to cover some crucial aspects of the war that affected the Kurdish society. In conclusion, it is possible to regard the film “The Kurdish Winter” as true reflection of the situation that happened during the reign of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The film covers the suffering of the members of the Kurdish society under a dictator and the viewpoints of main stakeholders during the time of the war. The film presents how many people suffered in the refugee camps, many of them being women and children. Hunger, poor health, physical disabilities and deaths was the realities that the Kurdish people had to during this period. Most of the scholars have come to unveil these facts the same way the film has exposed them. As the film points out, the suffering of the people was result of poor leadership and failure of the US and the Iraq Government to employ diplomatic strategies in search for peace. The US led tortured cost the life of many people, while the chemical attacks by Saddam Hussein resulted to death and displacement of more people. The film brings about the same issues that many scholars have discussed in their literature, rendering the work of the director of this video credible. However, the weakness of this film lies in its inability to focus on issues such as ethno genocide that took place during this time. From a critical point of view, it is clear that this film is truth and presents most of the facts that happened during this period. Bibliography Ajami, F 2013, Ten years on: Saddam Hussein is long gone, but a peaceful, democratic Iraq remains a long way off, Hoover Digest, 3, p. 87, Academic OneFile, EBSCOhost, viewed 4 April 2014. Barzanji, J 2013, A Kurdish Writer Remembers His Time In Saddam Husseins Prisons, n.p.: Gale, Cengage Learning, Gale Virtual Reference Library, EBSCOhost, viewed 4 April 2014. Brunstetter, D., 2014, Trends in just war thinking during the US presidential debates 2000–12: genocide prevention and the renewed salience of last resort, Review Of International Studies, 40, 1, pp. 77-99, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 4 April 2014. Denborough, D 2012, Responding to survivors of torture and suffering - survival skills of Kurdish families, International Journal Of Narrative Therapy & Community Work, 3, p. 18, Informit Health Collection, EBSCOhost, viewed 4 April 2014. Green, H, Sperlinger, D, & Carswell, K 2012, Too close to home? Experiences of Kurdish refugee interpreters working in UK mental health services, Journal Of Mental Health, 21, 3, pp. 227-235, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 4 April 2014. Grossman, A, & OBrien, Á 2006, Kurdish Lyrical Protest: The Terrain of Acoustic Migration, Journal Of Ethnic & Migration Studies, 32, 2, pp. 271-289, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 4 April 2014. Katzman, K 2014, Overview of the Post-Saddam Political Transition, Congressional Research Service: Report, p. 1, Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File, EBSCOhost, viewed 4 April 2014. Kelly, MJ 2013, Never Again? German Chemical Corporation Complicity in the Kurdish Genocide, Berkeley Journal Of International Law, 31, p. 348, LexisNexis Academic: Law Reviews, EBSCOhost, viewed 4 April 2014. Resneck, J., and Yankov, S 2012, Syrian Kurds find refuge in Iraqs Kurdish region, Washington Times, The (DC), p. 12, Regional Business News, EBSCOhost, viewed 4 April 2014. Wien, P 2012, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, The Middle East Journal, 3, p. 539, Academic OneFile, EBSCOhost, viewed 4 April 2014. Read More