Take Two: Voices of Iraq

I rented Voices of Iraq, a documentary that came and went too quickly for me to catch in LA, and highly recommend it.  Voices producers doled out 1,500 video cameras across Iraq and asked Iraqis to film themselves in one day in 2004 , and the results are extraordinary--and worth about 25 pounds of Sunday Times for anyone seeking a balanced view about Iraq. 

The film juxtaposes visuals of Iraqis on the ground: taxi drivers, rappers, housewives, college students, and street cops against the clueless scare headlines from reporters inside the Green Zone--as well as video shot by the dictator and his Caligula, Uday. 

The hundreds of interviews and excerpts are arbitrary, to be sure, but convey a much needed complexity to the whole discourse of Iraq. 

As usual, after I watched footage of Uday the Mad, I spent the night tossing and turning troubled by violent nightmares. 

He is safely in hell now...isn't he?

Also see Iraqi/Kurdish films at the Liberty Film Festival and review of Turtles Can Fly.