‘Voices’ Carry

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The New York Sun

At the end of the remarkable “Voices of Iraq,” there is a revealing moment. In order to go out on a high note, the film shows a young woman saying: “many things in the past barred our future; now there is hope.” Then a number of people talk about their hopes, including two adorable children who tell the camera what they want to be when they grow up. One says “Engineer,” but the other is suddenly tongue-tied. As the camera zooms in on him, his friend whispers: “Say ‘doctor.'”


“Doctor!” says the other, instantly obedient to the prompt.


The filmmakers in this case are the editors, Robin Russell, Martin Kunert, and Stephen Mark, who with producers Eric Manes and Archie Drury have shaped a film said to be “filmed and directed by the people of Iraq.” Mr. Drury, an ex-Marine, distributed 150 video cameras loaded with tape to a selection of ordinary Iraqis, who were asked to pass them on to others and return them when the tapes were exposed.


To a remarkable degree, this is just what they did, and the resulting picture of life in Iraq today is very different from what those whose expectations have been shaped by the press might expect.


For the editors have put the episode of the two boys in its place of prominence not only because it is cute but also because it reminds us that what cameras always record – even cameras in the hands of “the people of Iraq” – is a performance.


In another vignette, a serious looking man holding his small daughter is speaking to the camera of his and others’ feelings about life in Iraq today: “We resent the current situation,” he says, putting his serious face on – then he breaks into a grin. “And she just farted.”


Once the camera is turned on us, we all give prospective viewers what we think they’ll like to watch. This doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. The shy boy might really have wanted to be a doctor, and his friend was only reminding him. But people tell the camera what they want others to believe, true or not, and viewers need to be constantly alert, especially with a contentious subject like Iraq, to the possibility that they are being manipulated.


All credit, then, to “Voices of Iraq” for pointing out this essential fact, both at its own expense and at that of the establishment press. They remind us that the latter are so well-practiced at hiding what these amateurs routinely show that masses of otherwise media-savvy Americans still believe that what they see on the network news is a picture of the real Iraq.


“Voices” knocks this idea on the head at the beginning. One of their video cam-equipped Iraqis shows us the scene of a car bomb in Sadr City. Some people are milling about until “the journalists” arrive under armored escort. As the network cameras come out, the crowd turns into a shouting band of protesters, signs at the ready. The press get shots of “unrest” around the burning car and drive away, whereupon the protesters quietly leave, too.


Throughout, the filmmakers indulge themselves in moments of delicious irony with the help of portentous headlines taken from the American press. Thus we see the lugubrious New York Times head, “Iraq may survive, but the dream is dead,” juxtaposed with scenes of rejoicing by graduating students at Baghdad University.


My favorite of these is the Los Angeles Times screamer: “Photos of naked Iraqi prisoners outrage Arabs.” This introduces scenes of a lunchtime discussion among a group of Saddam Hussein’s torture victims, all rather amused at the contrast between what they endured and the latest “horror story” out of Abu Ghraib.


The Americans, says one of them, “have the nice torture.”


“All Iraqis are human and wishing to be prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison,” says another, wondering what kind of torture it is when “a woman undresses you and touches your penis.”


It is natural for them to observe that the latest Abu Ghraib victims “were Saddam’s henchmen” – with whom they could hardly be expected to have much sympathy. But such remarks are delivered with a ribald humor that no American journalist, right or left, would dare to suggest was even possible in the circumstances. Yet it makes them instantly believable.


So too is the heterodox view of another of the luncheon guests who says: “This is the first time in Iraqi history that a strong government has apologized about anything.”


Throughout the film there are moments of humor and pathos. There are also clips of torture and execution from the Saddam days and recruiting videos on behalf of the insurgents. Among the Iraqis who used Mr. Drury’s cameras there are no Saddam sympathizers, though several of them say they would prefer to go back to Saddam rather than endure the fears and uncertainties of the insurgency.


But on the whole, we are left with a sense of hopefulness as well as admiration for the Iraqi people. Doubtless it was the purpose of those editors with 400 hours of tape to choose from to create this impression, but they are open enough about it and show us enough contrary views that it is easy to trust them more than we ought to do the mainstream press with their uniformly pessimistic point of view.


At the least, anyone contemplating a vote against President Bush on account of the alleged “mess” he has made in Iraq, should see this film first. It allows us to believe with reasonable confidence that, though things there are messy in a lot of ways, the country coming into existence is very far from being a mess.


The New York Sun

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