Iraq in Fragments

Star Review

Iraq is normally depicted fleetingly, through fragments of news footage or snapshots of atrocity. Filming ordinary Iraqis over two years, James Longley’s remarkable documentary is a meditatively beautiful journey through a country stuggling to come to terms with its future.
In the first segment, Mohammed Haithem, 11-year-old auto mechanic, goes through his day on the streets of Baghdad. Positioned at child’s eye level (maybe he was simply ducking), Longley’s camerawork gives an intimate portrait of back streets and bustle, capturing in the boy’s eyes, the possibility of hope.
Elsewhere, Longley gains remarkable access to a militant Shia group, whose wild-eyed members revel in the opportunities created by Saddam’s overthrow. He also visits the Kurdish North, where a shepherd and his family have enjoyed relative independence and peace.
Haitham’s story is the most affecting. Fatherless and illiterate, he is cuffed and scolded by his boss to whom he maintains a devotion. “He loves me,” Haithem whispers to himself. “He loves me like a son.”

Milo Wakelin on 14th June 2007

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Film Description

A documentary in three parts, which offers a series of intimate, passionately-felt portraits of this war-torn country, seen through the eyes of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

A fatherless 11-year-old is apprenticed to the domineering owner of a Baghdad garage; Sadr followers in two Shiite cities rally for regional elections while enforcing Islamic law at the point of a gun; a family of Kurdish farmers welcomes the US presence, which has allowed them a measure of freedom previously denied.

American director James Longley spent more than two years filming in Iraq to create this stunningly photographed, poetically rendered documentary of the war-torn country as seen through the eyes of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

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