http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-oe-boot6jan06,1,3702375.column?coll=la-news-columns
Two True Pictures of the Terror War
During World War II, Frank Capra made a series of films called "Why We
Fight" to rally Americans behind the war effort. Imagine a filmmaker
doing that today. Actually, it's impossible to imagine. Hollywood
either prefers to stay away from the war on terrorism altogether (the
film version of Tom Clancy's "The Sum of All Fears" changed the
villains from Islamist extremists to neo-Nazis) or to use it, even in
its pre-9/11 form, as a morality play to warn against lost civil
liberties (see "The Siege," starring Denzel Washington).
The film community — whose exquisite sensibilities are routinely
outraged by the treatment of snail darters or swamps (a.k.a. wetlands)
— can't even work up much excitement about a Dutch filmmaker getting
slaughtered, allegedly by a Muslim fanatic. Where were the rallies and
memorials to protest Theo van Gogh's murder?
The lack of outrage should be no surprise because the most successful
movie made about the war on terrorism might as well have been titled
"Why We Shouldn't Fight." I refer, of course, to "Fahrenheit 9/11,"
which smarmily insinuated that the Bush administration posed a bigger
threat to the world than Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein ever did.
Some conservatives have produced their own documentaries in reply to
Michael Moore's grotesque mendacity, but the best answer comes from
two honest, nonpartisan films that depict different aspects of the
current struggle. If you want to know why we fight, check out the
movie "Osama" and the documentary "Voices of Iraq."
"Osama," the first film made in liberated Afghanistan, opens with a
scene of Taliban enforcers breaking up a demonstration by burka-clad
women upset about their inability to work. The action then shifts to a
hospital that is being closed, throwing a female doctor out of work.
Without a male wage earner in the family — both her husband and
brother have been killed — starvation looms. So she cuts her
12-year-old daughter's hair and sends her out to work disguised as a
boy called Osama.
Director and writer Siddiq Barmak's understated style convincingly
conveys the horror of daily life under the Taliban. Marina Golbahari,
a street urchin whose father was arrested by the Taliban in real life,
invests the title role with an authenticity that no mere actress could
hope to match.
Ultimately, Osama's masquerade unravels, and she faces a gruesome
punishment from an Islamic court. The ending, which I won't give away,
is enough to make anyone shudder — and give thanks that U.S. troops
have toppled the Taliban. Yet I don't recall a single Hollywood
feminist expressing gratitude to the U.S. military or its commander in
chief for the liberation of Afghan women. No doubt Streisand, Sarandon
& Co. were too busy inveighing against the horrors perpetrated by John
Ashcroft.
"Voices of Iraq" is one of the most gripping documentaries I have ever
seen. Most of the footage was created by distributing 150 digital
camcorders to let ordinary Iraqis record their own lives and thoughts
from April to September 2004.
Early in the film, an American newspaper headline — "Fear of Militias
Forces Ordinary Iraqis to Stay Home" — is ironically juxtaposed over a
bustling street scene. As the movie moves along, we see proud
university graduates in mortarboards, boys swimming in the river and
clowning around, and everyone riveted by the exploits of the Iraqi
soccer team at the Olympics. In other words, we see that the
terrorists are failing to disrupt Iraq's slow, painful progression
toward normality.
While "Fahrenheit 9/11" presents antebellum Iraq as an idyllic place
where children cavorted with kites, "Voices of Iraq" shows the grim
reality: Hussein's henchmen throwing bound prisoners off buildings,
raping girls, massacring Kurds. One horrifying video clip (shot by
Hussein's own people) shows a man's hand being cut off for the crime
of being caught with an American $5 bill. A survivor of Hussein's
torture chambers makes light of the U.S. abuses at Abu Ghraib: The
Americans, he says, "do the nice kind of torture."
A few Iraqis say that, given the current violence, they'd prefer to go
back to the old days of Saddamite stability, but most are enthralled
by their newfound freedom. "Now," one woman says, "there is
opportunity for hope."
Producers Eric Mannes, Archie Drury and Martin Kunert deserve an Oscar
for this eye-opening documentary. But they're not likely to get it
because that would require Hollywood to acknowledge there's more to
the occupation of Iraq than the evil designs of Halliburton and the
neocons.
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