Iraq in Fragments

US documentary shows Iraq through eyes of its people

DUBAI, Dec 16 (Reuters) - "It was so beautiful before, so beautiful" says Mohammed Haithem, a fatherless boy, as footage rolls of Baghdad's bustling streets before the U.S. invasion in 2003. "Now there is nothing."

"Iraq in Fragments" paints three pictures of Iraq -- Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish -- through the eyes of its people as they struggle to come to terms with the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The documentary, shortlisted for the Oscars after winning a raft of awards this year, paints intimate portraits of Haithem, who leaves school to help support his family in a Baghdad garage, of the rise of a Shi'ite militant group in the south, and of a Kurdish family as the north prepares for Iraq's first post-war election.

The documentary, filmed between 2003 and 2005, is all the more poignant as mounting sectarian bloodshed raises the spectre of Iraq's division into three parts and as Washington revises its policy in the country.

The film, which played to packed audiences at the Dubai film festival this week, highlights the conflicting emotions of Iraqis; glad that Saddam is gone but either fed up with U.S. occupation, or with the growing clout of religious militias, or with the car bombs.

Some viewers see the film as anti-American, but its U.S. director James Longley says that was not the intention.

"I'm just reflecting popular opinion in Iraq, which largely means they want the Americans out of Iraq and have done for a long time," Longley told Reuters. "I didn't want to make my film about the Americans. I wasn't really thinking about them."

Longley turns his camera on men playing backgammon in a Baghdad street. "Saddam stole everything for 35 years and now the Americans are doing the same again," says one of them.

The film then follows the rise of the Mehdi Army, a militia loyal to rebel Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who later led an uprising against U.S. forces in the holy city of Najaf in 2004.

It follows the Mehdi Army as it imposes its own law on parts of Iraq, arresting a man who sells alcohol. "We got rid of Saddam only to get another oppressor," the bound man complains.

The story then travels north, where Longley shows the Kurds, who welcome the United States and hope for their own state.

The film is one of 15 documentaries shortlisted for nominations to the Academy Awards. Winner of Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Editing awards at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival documentary competition, "Fragments" paints Iraq beautiful despite the overall sadness of the film.

"Iraq is a country," says one eight-year-old boy in northern Iraq at the end of the film. "How can you cut it up?"

Reuters