You won't be disappointed!

The Worst Film Ever

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I agree completely with the review I read at DVDMOVIECENTRAL.Voices of Iraq is one of the most moving and inspiring documentaries I've ever had the pleasure to watch. It's like witnessing the birth of an unimaginable miracle. If, as it has been said, the basic yearning of all human beings is to be free, then this is a film that speaks directly to that most sacred part of all of us.It was a simple project instigated by a group called Voices of Freedom, who decided to distribute 150 digital video cameras to the people of Iraq in April of 2004, telling them to film anything they wanted to…themselves, their friends, their families…giving them full license to speak their minds and talk about whatever they felt like addressing. Then pass the cameras along so that others could do the same. In September, the cameras were collected, and the amassed footage was turned into this documentary…a film in which the Iraqis spoke with their own voice, with no one looking over their shoulders.The six month period encompassed a lot of landmarks in the war…it began with the first Fallujah insurgency. Early on in the film, many Iraqis were disheartened. They were not sure if their futures had a chance with all the bombings and disruptive terrorist attacks. Though they were glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein, some wondered aloud if they would have been better off with him remaining in power.But despite the hardships, many begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Setbacks are amusingly chronicled by the American media as worse than they are (we frequently see newspaper headlines on dates where the video footage is showing quite a different picture). How did the Iraqis really react, for example, to Abu-Grahib? At least one was impressed that America would apologize for it. Many had been in that prison when it was Saddam's torture chamber, and therefore don't see why such a fuss was being made over the photos that had the anti-war crowd in our country so up in arms.On the day sovereignty was handed over, many media outlets tried to portray it as a symbolic but meaningless transfer of power. But in the eyes of the Iraqis, it was a new birth. People who used to work for slave wages were suddenly getting real money. Schools were being opened with a new sense of freedom. News agencies were celebrating that for the first time, they didn't have to censor themselves. Open discussions were being held about the emergence of the role of women in Iraqi society. Okay, some men were still a little hesitant about that, but the women were proud and fearless…one gleefully announces that if men won't give them their rights, they'll simply TAKE them. Another young woman is asked about the future of women's roles in her country. She pauses, laughs, and says, "I can't believe we're talking about this in IRAQ!" The Iraqi stock market began to emerge as a true economic force. Email addresses, which used to cost a year and a half's worth of an average salary, were becoming common as Iraqi citizens took to the internet. Passports used to cost a fortune and were hard to come by…now they are free and available to all. Some older citizens are shown beside themselves with joy that for the first time, they could travel.We watch the nation look on as their national soccer team played in the Olympics for the first time in 16 years…they had been banned from participation since 1988 because of Uday Hussein's use of torture against players who lost matches. Now, playing for love of country instead of fear, they took to the world stage, and despite such a lengthy absence from the event, managed an impressive fourth place showing overall.The music of the film is provided by an Iraqi group called Euphrates, whom we see as finally being able to record the kind of music they've always wanted to, without government restrictions. We see Christians and Muslims side by side, respecting one another and working together for the future of their nation. We see kids dreaming of growing up to be doctors and lawyers and such, while their parents look on and smile and realize the new generation will have the kinds of opportunities that theirs never had.It's too bad that while vile propaganda films like Fahrenheit 9/11 get shoved down out throats for the better part of a year, a modest, unstaged and non-partisan film like Voices of Iraq has to struggle for distribution. It has only been shown in a few cities. This DVD was produced as a way of getting it seen, but it's not available in most stores…thankfully, Netflix has chosen to add it to their library so renters can get a look at what can only be described as a documentary of the purest kind…no scripts, no directions, just real people baring their real souls. I can only hope in the wake of Michael Moore that people will take the time to remember what a real documentary can be like.

It always amazes me to see people who have endured great oppression and pain smiling so freely. The film makes it pretty clear that Iraqis have an indomitable spirit. I was struck by the almost unanimous level of support for America and "democracy" presented in the film - especially since an Iraqi poll released yesterday reported that in some areas 65 percent support attacks on US military, and less than one percent think the occupation is improving security. Even if a cynical view held that the film's American editors introduced their spin, the pure joy expressed by the children and twenty-somethings being filmed and filming was clearly genuine.Included in the film are archival clips - shocking examples of Sadaam's torturers at work. A few seconds of these is almost enough to turn any skeptic into a True Believer Bushite.One grumble: Is there a special motion picture school out there that trains sadists to create captions for foreign language films shown in the US? Those in "Voices of Iraq" have to be the absolute most painful to endure - they are tiny, often projected with little contrast with the background and flashed on and off so fast that one would have to be a champeen speed reader to follow wot the h they said.2nd grumble: Next time they do another film like this, hopefully they will hand out tripods along with the cameras. With the camera movement almost constant and the bleepin captions blinking on and off, it is a challenge to concentrate - but seeing the people up front and close and speaking their minds, made it well worth the minor irritation. Check it out.

There is, of course, some controversy over the legitimacy of this film as far as whether it has a political agenda or not. It is indeed strange that they distributed 150 video cameras and, if each camera was distributed with only one tape, that's about 150 hours of footage, which was then whittled down to a meager 80-minute film. If there were two tapes per camera, about 300 hours of footage, etc. It's a clever marketing device to claim that this film was directed by the Iraqi people, but that is, of course, nonsense, because the person in the editing room could have made any film they wanted out of the footage that they had to work with. The fact that at least 150 hours of footage was cut into a film that doesn't even run a full hour and a half should immediately dispel any idea that the people of Iraq had anything to do with directing this movie, but you can't help but respect the goal of giving the Iraqis a medium through which to try to tell their stories. But in order to allow them to truly direct the movie, it would have to be 150 hours long. Whatever the case, the film does give unprecedented insight into what normal life in Iraq is like.What I love about the film is that it does try to show every side of the issue. There are some people who say they wish they could go back to the way things were before the Americans came to Iraq, even if it meant going back to the Iraqi regime, there are people who mourn the death of loved ones lost in battle with the Americans, there are people who sit together and have serious, concerned conversations about the occupation, understanding the damage that it is doing to their country and their fellow Iraqis, but also understanding how important it is that the Americans stay there to maintain security. There are people in this film that claim that the Americans do nothing but harm to their country and there are people who call us saviors, and of course, peppered in the middle of all of these normal people voicing their concerns about the state of their union are various videos from the insurgents, displaying their sheer brutality and total lack of humanity. I remember when Saddam's sons were killed and their corpses displayed all over the covers of magazines and newspapers all over the world, I was shocked that a sovereign nation like the United States would display something so grotesque and brutal about the family of the leader of another sovereign nation, even if the broadcast brutality involved a vicious dictator like Saddam Hussein. But man, once I saw the videos that were shown in this movie, I wanted to go over there myself and start shooting. Of course, I'd last about 30 seconds in Iraq with my white skin and blue eyes.On the other hand, when I think about it, it doesn't surprise me that people are accusing the makers of this film of being involved with the Bush administration. To be sure, I wouldn't put something as sneaky as that past Curious George and his minions, but I think that the film does a good job of showing all sides. Because while the vicious and sickening videos of Uday Hussein and the disturbing melodies chanted in the Taliban videos by far overshadow everything else, the film also vindicates Michael Moore (Did you notice the children laughing and playing? See? It really does happen! Even in Iraq!), and would any company working for the Bush administration want to do something crazy like that?

I wonder how many of the people here calling this film propaganda believe Farenheit 911 is gospel? Some of you seem to be willing to deny that people can possibly be happy now that Saddam is gone because the media (who by the way are here in the US and not in Iraq) tell you they aren't. You say that we shouldn't have gone to Iraq because we had no good reason to do so. Mass graves, murder, and rape were our only reason for going into the Balkans, yet there was no outcry from the left. I guess fiction and fact are in the eyes of the beholder. If it makes your position look good, it's fact. If it makes your opposition look good, it's propaganda.