Voices of Iraq (2004)

The people of Iraq tell their amazing stories in this fascinating and important documentary which gives Iraqi men and women the chance to describe in their own words their years under Saddam Hussein and their struggle to create their own stable society in a period of appalling violence. Producers Eric Manes Archie Drury and Martin Kunert distributed 150 digital video cameras to Iraqis all over the country and the resulting 400 hours of footage includes powerful testimony from sheiks and insurgents mothers and children and everyday workers each discussing their perspective hopes and daily lives.System Requirements:Running Time: Approximately 80 MinutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: NR UPC: 876964000338 Manufacturer No: 10033 Product Description

To be watched with a discerning eye

I rented this film the other night from blockbuster. I've been drawn to any documentaries which shed light on the Iraq situation out of a hunger for knowledge regarding whats really going on there. I was initially impressed by the film but couldn't shake a nagging suspicion that something might be fishy with this film. While I will not make any blanket statements regarding the true nature of this film I will present you with a few interesting details about the film that struck me as odd, so that you might come to your own informed conclusion. (some content taken from Wikipedia)

1. "...the film's public relations were handled by MS&L, "a P.R. firm employed by the Army" even though same firm also represents General Motors, Nestle, Philips, and Procter & Gamble and in 2003 won the Holmes Report "Best PR Agency of the Year" award. Producer Martin Kunert dismissed the accusations with, "Are makers of SUV's, chocolates, and toothpaste hiring documentary filmmakers to propagandize the U.S. population?"

What the general public doesn't usually realize is just how much influence America's corporations (like the ones that were listed above) control have on our government representatives in Washington, through lobbying and close ties to our representatives. But that is another story for another day. My point was that the fact that those companies were employed the P.R. firm that handled the Army's P.R. matters didn't surprise me at all. If anything in only served to further raise my suspicions.

2. A look at the critics...


* The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "'Voices of Iraq' is a must-see for anyone still coming to terms with the chaos in Iraq."[5]
* The Los Angeles Times, "By turns heartbreaking, amusing and disturbing, the film features people from different regions, economic classes and religions, recounting stories that are sometimes bleak, sometimes encouraging, but always compelling"
* Variety, "In a season of political documentaries that take one side or the other on the war in Iraq, a film has emerged whose purpose is not to address American politics but the Iraqi people."
* Hollywood Reporter, "Perhaps the sharpest commentary on years of suffering, hope and the wages of war are the children in front of and behind the cameras."
* The Wall Street Journal, "At a time when shrill political diatribes dominate the documentary scene, along comes an authentic work that dares to let the subject speak for itself - literally."
* Dallas Morning News, "An extraordinary, up-to-the-minute tapestry that ranges all over this country of 25 million people and carries the force of revelation."
* The Washington Times: "'Voices of Iraq' is neither partisan nor conservative in any meaningful sense of the word. However, as an attempt to get behind the filter of the main stream media - as a picture of reality unmediated by editorial commentary - it's a more potent negation of Michael Moore, Craig Unger, Noam Chomsky and Co."
* The New York Times: "If this film cannot claim to represent the political "truth" about the war - what film could?"

But questions too:

* Variety: "As a true or accurate portrait of the real Iraq, however, pic pales in comparison to various in-depth U.S. and European reports, and to Bahman Ghobadi's brilliant new drama on wartime Kurdish refugees, "Turtles Can Fly.""
* The Village Voice: "any film that credits itself as "filmed and directed by the people of Iraq" deserves to be regarded with skepticism."
* Detroit Free Press: "a revealing documentary that depicts the day-to-day hopes and grief of people. Mothers talk about sons gone missing. Interviews are interrupted by bomb explosions. Kids practice in a rock band after listening to black-market Metallica CDs. The movie is disturbing, sometimes funny, and also timely.... Maybe my skepticism comes with the timing- the movie arrives just days before the presidential election."

There seems to be a pattern when it comes to pro-Bush administration media (while this film was certainly not touted as such) that the books and movies what share this slant are eagerly reviewed by papers such as The Washington Times and The Wall Street Journal, both known to cater to the Bush administration's policies. While a book like Barrie Zwicker's "Towers of Deception: The Media Cover-up of 9/11" receives little or no coverage by the mainstream media. They won't touch it with a ten and a half foot pole...and for good reason, they'd have their senior editors and Ceo's of those media companies breathing down their neck to pull it.
Consider the following...


Concentration of media ownership (also known as media consolidation) is a commonly used term among those who are concerned that the majority of the media outlets are owned by a small number of conglomerates and corporations -- especially those who view such consolidation as detrimental, dangerous, or otherwise worrying -- to characterize ownership structure of mass media industries. These individual media industries are often referred to as a 'Media Institution'. Media ownership may refer to states of oligopoly or monopoly in a given media industry, or to the importance of a low number of media conglomerates. Large media conglomerates include Disney, National Amusements, Time Warner, Viacom, News Corp, Bertelsmann AG, Sony, General Electric, Vivendi SA and Lagardère Group.

For example, movie production is known to be dominated by major studios since the early 20th Century; before that, there was a period in which Edison's Trust monopolized the industry. The music and television industries recently witnessed cases of media consolidation, with Sony Music Entertainment's parent company merging their music division with Bertelsmann AG's BMG to form Sony BMG and TimeWarner's The WB and CBS Corp.'s UPN merging to form The CW. In the case of Sony BMG, there existed a "Big Five" (now "Big Four") of major record companies, while The CW's creation was an attempt to consolidate ratings and stand up to the "Big Four" of American network (terrestrial) television.

There may also be some large-scale owners in an industry that are not the causes of monopoly or oligopoly. Clear Channel Communications, especially since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, acquired many radio stations across the United States, and came to own more than 1,200 stations. However, the radio broadcasting industry in the United States and elsewhere can be regarded oligopolistic regardless of the existence of such a player. Because radio stations are local in reach, each licensed a specific part of airwave by the FCC in a specific local area, any local market is served by a limited number of stations. In most countries, this system of licensing makes many markets local oligopolies. The similar market structure exists for television broadcasting, cable systems and newspaper industries, all of which are characterized by the existence of large-scale owners. Concentration of ownership is often found in these industries.

For this we can in part thank the "Golden Boy" of the Republican's, Michael Powell... "the chairman of the FCC, Powell led from his long-stated libertarian philosophy of deregulation of communications. Powell saw excessive regulation as stifling to technological innovation, and led the charge to open up markets in VoIP, Wi-Fi, and Broadband over Powerline (BPL)."

Did you catch the bit where General Motors was listed as a "Large media conglomerate" ?... Than you might also remember point 1 which referred to the fact the General Motors employed MS&L, the P.R. firm that is also employed by the Army". I'd have to research this more to see if there is any connection, but I just found this to be interesting and a point worth looking into.

3. Eric Manes, the producer of Voices of Iraq. His filmography includes:

2005 Dodging Bullets, writer, Warner Bros.
2004 Voices of Iraq, producer, Magnolia Pictures
2002 The Mayor, creator, executive producer, Columbia Tristar
2003 CHiPs, writer, executive producer, Warner Bros.
2002 The Brazilian, writer, Paramount
2002 Catch, writer, executive producer, CBS
2002 Beautiful People, writer, executive producer, USA Networks
2001 HRT, writer, executive producer, CBS, Columbia TriStar
2001 Inside Fear, creator, executive producer, MTV
2001 Faces of Fear, creator, executive producer, MTV
2000 MTV's Fear, creator, executive producer, MTV
2000 3000 Miles to Graceland, writer, producer, Warner Bros.
1998 Hindenburg, writer, 20th Century Fox
1998 They Come at Night, producer, indie
1997 Campfire Tales, writer, producer, New Line Cinema
1997 Lowball, producer, Cinequinon
1996 Phat Beach, producer, Orion Pictures
1995 Where Do Planes Sleep?, producer, Indie

Some pretty big names in there... 20th Century Fox, Warner, Paramount, MTV... I think its safe to classify those under "Large media conglomerates".

So to sum up my thoughts, while I myself have not come to any absolute conclusions regarding the true origin and intent of this film, I think there are a lot of interesting connections that this film has with the Bush Administration and the government in general. Understanding how the media corporations work and just how close the ties are to our government, I think there is a good chance that this film was indeed at least influenced by the Bush Administration. Whether its a biased film or not, I think the eyes of the children in this film speak volumes after you strip away political medium that finally broadcast their faces onto our television sets back here in the United States. So in short, view this film with a discerning eye and let us not forget the Iraqis themselves who are caught up in all of this. January 10, 2008

Not for the faint-hearted or the young

I got this to use excerpts for a 7th grade geography class. My 21-year-old daughter watched it with me when I previewed it, and was horrified at how graphic it was. It shows lots of close-ups of dead bodies when talking about gassing the Kurds. It shows some pretty overwhelming footage in the section on "atrocities" under Saddam. It's horrible that children in Iraq are exposed to violence on a daily basis. But to expose 7th graders here to those images is not solving anything. I'm assuming this DVD was not intended for my 7th graders. Also, I agree that this has a very "pro-invasion" slant. But there are one or two milder excerpts I may still use with my students. January 15, 2007

Propaganda

This film is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It advertises itself as an objective presentation of the views of contemporary, average Iraqis as seen through their undirected use of 150 digital cameras distributed randomly by the film's creators. This is clearly not what the film is. The beginning of the highly edited work does show some dissatisfaction with chaos and loss of life associated with the war, but the final four-fifths of the film slams home a cogent thesis that the American invasion has universally benefited all Iraqis and was the right choice by America's leadership. The film uses much footage and other sources having nothing to do with the Iraqis filming themselves with the aforementioned video cameras to drive the thesis (examples include insurgent recruitment videos, footage depicting Saddam's regime's brutality, exerpting newspaper headlines) Extreme bias is evident as the editing bends over backwards to advance arguments resembling sundry, dubious pro-war Republican talking points including: Most Iraqis are now happy and better off than they were before (footage of Saddam's torture); the Abu Ghraib scandal is only an American scandal as it doesn't bother Iraqis; the media is to blame for focusing on the negative aspects of the war (juxtaposition of positive scenes with negative headlines from major newspapers-could the editing bias be any more apparent than here?); the insurgency is not comprised of Iraqis - it is a conspiracy of foreign states that would be harmed by a successful democratic model in Iraq; Saddam gave comfort and aid to Al Queda; America is widely appreciated by Iraqis; Iraqis do not view the war as one against Islam - in fact all the differing religious as well as ethnic factions are shown to exist in a state of mutual respect and harmony - even Iraqi Christians and women; etc. etc.

At best its simply a biased documentary that fails due to its deception under a pretense of objectivity. At worst this is a GOP/Neo-Con propaganda film. I am not saying this is the actual case, but if the Bush administration was going to make a propaganda film, it might look quite a bit like this one. Also, look at the timing of the release; right before the 2004 presidential elections, and the PR for this film was handled by the same media firm that the US Army uses. Financing for the film may have ties to neo-con organizations also. There are voices here...but not an unedited, smattering of Iraqi people, more like Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Rove.

Just some food for thought. June 6, 2006

Worth checking out, but need

This film is great in that it shows you up close the living conditions in Iraq and connects the American audience with Iraqis much more than the media does. There is also footage of the Fedayeen that shows how brutal they were.

However the film is defeintly biased. It was released just prior to the November 2004 elections.

I spent 10 months in Iraq and never talked to as many Iraqis pleased to have us here as this film. If you speakt to 150 Iraqis, you're bound to run into a Sunni Iraqi pissed at America. Believe me, I'd seen enough rocks thrown and "thumbs down" to know. The producers had to be selective in their editing to choose a mostly "everything is fine here" responses, from mostly western style dressed Iraqis from Kurdistan or southern Iraq.

Take this as an example. In the beginning of the film. A US Army Humvee is hit with an IED and a crowd gathers throwing rocks and other objects at the vehicle which is in flames. If Iraqis were so pro-US, wouldn't they prevent the crowd from gathering? The reason for this is that there is large anti-US sentiment. The split is much more 50/50 than this film potrays.

But in the end getting the view from Iraqis is better than getting it from a CNN Anchor. May 26, 2006

One of the best political documentaries, I have seen

In a rather interesting idea, cameras were distributed all over Iraq. People filmed each other so we have a heaps of interviews of people with a wide range of views all spoke on the main issues that they faced such as their hopes for the future, terrorism, democracy and financial issues. Then someone put it together extremely well.

It all made for some quite fascinating viewing. May 4, 2006

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