The film "About Baghdad" depicts the lives of the ordinary people who have gone though a devastation of their country, who have lost their loved ones and who still manage to survive. Over the years, the USA population was bombed with media information how the war that was led in Iraq was a fight for democracy, for the freedom, but the film showed the other side of the truth. The numbers of causalities that echo every day in the news headlines have become real persons who fight through life and manage to live despite the lack of elementary necessities such as electricity. I may be one of the rare ones who believed that every war is an attempt to weaken one nation so that someone else can benefit from the resources.
This film proved that I was right. Saddam Hussein was a dictator who led people of Iraq into a war with Iran, but as one man said in the film, "The student has left and the master has come" ("About Baghdad"). This sentence discovers hopelessness and helplessness of the ordinary people. The thing that strikes me the most in the film is the destruction of Iraqi culture. Hussein has begun to destroy it, but Bush administration intensified it by disregarding the culture of the country. One of the examples of that is when, near the end of the film, Sinan Antoon enters a memorial with the names of dead Iraqi soldiers and some of the names are covered with plastic cards so that there would be parking space for cars of the troops. This image conveys the lack of respect for the culture, country and nation that the USA is supposed to be helping not destroying. Finally, I believe that every war is led with a certain interest. The war in Iraq only set up a crisis in the Middle East and aggravated local population against the USA government. I only hope that Iraqi nation will manage to save its identity and spirit.
Cited work:
"About Baghdad" (2004), Directed by Sinan Antoon. InCounter Productions.
