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directed by James Longley
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Aesthetically speaking, Iraq in Fragments isn't all that fragmentary. Although director James Longley essentially divides the country into thirds (according to Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd), the film is really quite fluid and harmonious. This has its drawbacks: we're released from the take-a-step-back God's-eye approach familiar from countless documentaries and thrown into what appears to be the scrum of social life in Iraq, sink or swim. A little context would be useful, as it would be if we were in the middle of the war zone itself. Whatever the shortcomings of this approach, however, Iraq in Fragments takes a necessary swipe at the idea that the eponymous country was a mass of undifferentiated Oppressed yearning for a conquering hero to release it from bondage. It suggests that Iraq is at least as complex as that of its invading "liberators"; and if Longley's three snapshots can contradict each other, that's to be expected from any nation with more than one cultural faction.
The film is carved up into three sections: "Mohammed of Baghdad", which follows the story of an 11-year-old boy juggling school and a job (with a bully of a taskmaster in the latter); "Sadr City", which talks of attempts at free votes competing with Muqtada al-Sadr's Shiite resurgence; and "Kurdish Spring", in which a Kurdish man and his son discuss their hopes now that the Americans have removed the source of their persecution. There is no reconciling these segments. Part one is a concentrated expression of cynicism over American benevolence that ultimately fails to express the relevance of the child's plight in a coherent thesis. Part two is a more detailed exploration of the fallout of Saddam's fear of Shia after the Iranian revolution, but still a bit of a snarl as to who's doing what and why. Finally, part three is a fairly cut-and-dried affair whose main flaw is that it could perhaps go into further detail.
Still, Longley is not interested in feeding you a line. His more lyrical approach to Iraq and its politics makes you feel like a bystander in the political no-man's-land of the nation instead of a distant observer with godlike powers of self-righteousness. If one doesn't get a solid sense of the undercurrents driving the main action (and that's a fault Longley should have addressed), neither does one get a sense that such undercurrents are easily mastered. Implicitly, the film is saying that the absolutism and reductionism involved in the ideal of "regime change" are bound to fail due to the infinite complexity of Sunni vs. Shiite and the Kurdish skeletons in the closets of both. While Iraq in Fragments closes on the idea of America as a sort-of saviour for the Kurds, it's more of a wrinkle than a total position; Longley is interested in challenging assumptions, even of those well-meaning leftists who may make sweeping generalizations of their own.
As a stylist, Longley proves more proficient than astute. The pictures are attractive, yet one doesn't see a cinematic expression of Longley's ideas so much as a visually-pleasing framework for the same. As the only Western film about Iraqis (as opposed to American soldiers in Iraq) to crack the public consciousness, though, the situation could be a lot worse. The director isn't always articulate enough to expand our consciousness, but at least he shows us the shape of the problem and alerts us to how little we actually know about it, thus insinuating that careful consideration must be taken before blundering into partisan bluster that may talk around the problems. And despite that an unambiguous position never comes to the fore, one surmises that Longley's sympathy isn't that of a faker or a poser. His compassion is as obvious as it is refreshing in light of a certain administration's fear-mongering.
THE DVD
Mongrel Media presents Iraq in Fragments on DVD in an unexpectedly rich and lustrous 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, the bold colours and intricate detail rarely betraying the movie's DV origins. The Dolby 5.1 audio is also very surprising, the mix itself consisting of an unusual number of cues for a documentary while giving the subwoofer plenty of attention via the incidental music. The only major extra is an interview with Longley (20 mins.) administered by critic Robert Horton that fills in much of the background lost in Iraq in Fragments itself, including the fact that only 30% of Iraqi children can go to school and that the education system itself was one of the best in the region before sanctions forced children to work to help their families. For his part, Longley is intelligent, reasoned, and thorough in his explication of his methods. Rounding out the disc: the film's trailer.
94 minutes; NR; 1.85:1 (16×9-enhanced); Kurdish/Arabic DD 5.1; CC; English (optional) subtitles; Region One; DVD-5; Mongrel
