On Monday (note: 28 March 2005), we completed what I coined the "Trilogy of Documentaries on the War of Iraq" in the HK International Film Festival. The three pieces took three distinctively different angles, while none showed any support for the war.
The World According to Bush is a 60-minutes type of documentary, full of interviews and analysis, and took it to the Pentagon by the grand scale.
It nicely set the scene for Gunner Palace, which cuts as being a sometimes funny, but not at all warm, collage of bits and pieces of various US soldiers, chilling in the "Palace" (of Saddam's son apparently, according to the description) with (once) extravagant d?cor and facilities while fighting the REAL war (well after America had captured Baghdad and people shifted attention to other things). Do they know what they are doing? They didn't do an on-site version of a 60-minutes-esque narration but they know what they are NOT doing and what people back home DON'T know.
Now came the unexpected biggie: in the hands of Japanese director Watai, who got his crew to hospitals, homes and streets to witness how lives have been destroyed (and I mean DESTROYED) by bombs and guns. Little Birds has 102 minutes of no-frills reality unfolded in a strikingly straightforward way; walls with holes, parents mourning their dead children, normal life mixed with hatred, peppered by blood and flesh on hospital beds and bombing sites. If it didn't strike a chord with the fundamental human empathy, as well as the love for life and well-being, I don't know what does.
It is the kind of unpleasant memory that I want to keep: lest it gets lost in the warm and quiet complacency and the often-relentless quest for such mirage.
No comments:
Post a Comment