On the 19th November 2005, Kilo Company of the US Marines were attacked by an IED detonated remotely. One marine was killed and two injured. In the hours immediately after this incident, the search for those responsible took in the houses in the immediate area. After the search was complete twenty-four Iraqi men, women and children were dead.
Fellow reviewer Theo Robertson was fortunate enough to attend a screening of this film with the director recently but I also appreciate the ability to watch it without being surrounded by, let's face it, "the choir" in regards the point the film is making. My view of the situation was brought home to me by a minor character in HBO's The Wire who is on the brink of war with another gang and notes that it is too late now for the who's and why's because the war is on and lie or not, they have to fight. This is almost how I see Iraq now we all know about the lack of WMD's, the political spin to "freedom" and "regime change", the lack of plan for peace and so on. We also know that really those in charge will never be held responsible so lets make the best we can out of the situation.
So for me Broomfield's film is almost spot on because it focuses on this "fight" and it forces the viewer to face the fact that the very difficult questions of how that can be done. In ways that are a bit "blocky" in nature, we do get three distinct groups of characters the marines, the men planting the bomb (for money) and local families living in the area. This approach does several things really well and the overall impact is utterly depressing and left me wondering how we ever will get out of Iraqi in anyway that would be even slightly positive. The marines are handled pretty well I thought. The viewer is allowed into their world where they are being asked to respond to unseen attackers in a world where everyone is a suspect. Of course the response is unacceptable but Broomfield makes it possible to understand why this happened and the desire to lash out and response is tangible.
Of course the attachment to the civilians makes it sickening. Although it is a little obvious, I did like the way that Broomfield used an attractive and sexual couple at the core of this group, making it easier for western audiences to see people and not a religion in them. I also appreciated how the response is not milked for emotion by using music, slow-motion or any other trick designed to tell you that what you are watching is terrible. Instead it is cold and clean and all the more shocking for it. The third group is also well used two men with no specific religious beliefs but a hatred for the soldiers and a desire for money for murder. They are not presented as "good men in bad situations" but rather their aim is clear however the film lets us see that they never intended to make things worse. In this emotion we see a distinction between them (whose aim is murder of US soldiers) and those who seek to inspire chaos and murder to further fuel the fire and get recruits. This aspect is the most depressing.
The film is not perfect though and the way that Broomfield has to use this story to make points means that at times he does have to make narrative sweeps. Thus the story leads to further recruitment, recriminations against specific soldiers and of course a clean bill of health for those in charge. These are all fair points but they clash slightly with the tight, gritty focus of the rest of the film on the specifics and I did think that the same points could have been made in a less obvious manner since the meat of that argument is entirely in the Haditha incident. The delivery of the film is convincing and the Jordan location is well used. Broomfield's documentary background comes through really well and the action feels real which does help prevent it being "exciting" or thrilling. He also gets reasonably good performances from the cast. I say reasonably good because when they are called upon to emote, it does feel like they are "acting", but otherwise they are mostly very natural and convincing. I refer specifically to Ruiz; really good when in the thick of it and reacting but is not as good when asked to breakdown.
Overall then, this is an engaging and impacting film that surprised me by being quite balanced (or at least as balanced as a film showing US marines murdering unarmed civilians can be). The characters are not forgiven or shown positively but their behaviour is all shown in the context of Iraqi backing up the claim that those at the top need to be shouldering a lot of the blame. He does tend to let the film dip when he has to move into more general territory towards the end but otherwise it is a strong and impacting affair that deserves to be seen.
Fellow reviewer Theo Robertson was fortunate enough to attend a screening of this film with the director recently but I also appreciate the ability to watch it without being surrounded by, let's face it, "the choir" in regards the point the film is making. My view of the situation was brought home to me by a minor character in HBO's The Wire who is on the brink of war with another gang and notes that it is too late now for the who's and why's because the war is on and lie or not, they have to fight. This is almost how I see Iraq now we all know about the lack of WMD's, the political spin to "freedom" and "regime change", the lack of plan for peace and so on. We also know that really those in charge will never be held responsible so lets make the best we can out of the situation.
So for me Broomfield's film is almost spot on because it focuses on this "fight" and it forces the viewer to face the fact that the very difficult questions of how that can be done. In ways that are a bit "blocky" in nature, we do get three distinct groups of characters the marines, the men planting the bomb (for money) and local families living in the area. This approach does several things really well and the overall impact is utterly depressing and left me wondering how we ever will get out of Iraqi in anyway that would be even slightly positive. The marines are handled pretty well I thought. The viewer is allowed into their world where they are being asked to respond to unseen attackers in a world where everyone is a suspect. Of course the response is unacceptable but Broomfield makes it possible to understand why this happened and the desire to lash out and response is tangible.
Of course the attachment to the civilians makes it sickening. Although it is a little obvious, I did like the way that Broomfield used an attractive and sexual couple at the core of this group, making it easier for western audiences to see people and not a religion in them. I also appreciated how the response is not milked for emotion by using music, slow-motion or any other trick designed to tell you that what you are watching is terrible. Instead it is cold and clean and all the more shocking for it. The third group is also well used two men with no specific religious beliefs but a hatred for the soldiers and a desire for money for murder. They are not presented as "good men in bad situations" but rather their aim is clear however the film lets us see that they never intended to make things worse. In this emotion we see a distinction between them (whose aim is murder of US soldiers) and those who seek to inspire chaos and murder to further fuel the fire and get recruits. This aspect is the most depressing.
The film is not perfect though and the way that Broomfield has to use this story to make points means that at times he does have to make narrative sweeps. Thus the story leads to further recruitment, recriminations against specific soldiers and of course a clean bill of health for those in charge. These are all fair points but they clash slightly with the tight, gritty focus of the rest of the film on the specifics and I did think that the same points could have been made in a less obvious manner since the meat of that argument is entirely in the Haditha incident. The delivery of the film is convincing and the Jordan location is well used. Broomfield's documentary background comes through really well and the action feels real which does help prevent it being "exciting" or thrilling. He also gets reasonably good performances from the cast. I say reasonably good because when they are called upon to emote, it does feel like they are "acting", but otherwise they are mostly very natural and convincing. I refer specifically to Ruiz; really good when in the thick of it and reacting but is not as good when asked to breakdown.
Overall then, this is an engaging and impacting film that surprised me by being quite balanced (or at least as balanced as a film showing US marines murdering unarmed civilians can be). The characters are not forgiven or shown positively but their behaviour is all shown in the context of Iraqi backing up the claim that those at the top need to be shouldering a lot of the blame. He does tend to let the film dip when he has to move into more general territory towards the end but otherwise it is a strong and impacting affair that deserves to be seen.