Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by dave c (A) on April 30, 2006 at 16:36:49

This is a cheaply made doco about ordinary Iraqis before and after the US invasion.
It was made more or less alone by an Aussie film maker and spends time with ordinary people... students, teachers, a shoe repairer, etc as the reality of war gets closer and its inevitability becomes clear.
The difficulties of a translator helping the film and who is actually a Palestinian refugee married to an Iraqi are overlaid on to this.
At times the film seems to have something missing... notably stating that copies of the film were destroyed by immersion in water on his return to Australia although the circumstances are not stated...
But the scenes of ordinary people devastated by the destruction of their homes and lives is vividly drawn.
The film starts with a very disturbing scene...