Winter in Baghdad

Director and script writer: Javier Corcuera
Camera: Jordi Abusada
Editor: Martin Ellor
Music: Nasser Shamma
Producer: Elias Querejeta

On the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a poignant, unforgettable, and searingly moving film that had been premiered at the Emirates Film Festival in February was being shown in London. As part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Winter in Baghdad** was screened at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, in central Pall Mall, a few minutes walk from Buckingham Palace at one end and equidistant from the prime minister's Downing Street residence. Had Prime Minister Blair dropped in for the viewing, he just might finally have realized the horror of historic proportions he had colluded in releasing on the people of Iraq.

The Spanish director Javier Corcuera explained that Winter in Baghdad was an idea born as a result of Spanish activists who had mobilized before the invasion, "Ordinary people, housewives, academics, et cetera." People from all walks of life went to Iraq with others from all over the world, to act as human shields, to live in oil, water, and every other kind of production facilities in a desperate bid to stop the bombing. If civilians from countries that were part of the coalition were in danger of being killed, they hoped it just might prevent military action.

Corcuera and his small crew decided to follow them and "record spontaneous material, small sequences, the flavor of every day Iraqi life, passing by." One superb sequence came to represent Baghdad on the eve of war. Four young boys were sitting on a wall to gather in camaraderie, their shoulders were touching, and they were looking out over the great Tigris river as dusk drew around and cream, apricot, and gold streaked the sky and the birds wheeled and swung against the falling sun. Although war approaching, they still laughed, planned their futures where many Baghdadis before them have laughed, played, and wept for innumerable generations — all on or by the Tigris.

Corcuera's team met their families and friends and filmed their lives, homes, hopes, and fears. "I wish there was no war," one child suddenly told him. At almost the same time, Ruth Russell, a teacher and human shield from Australia, had organized a spontaneous art workshop for younger children, hoping to bring brief normality in abnormal times. One small boy pondered long on his painting subject, then carefully, painstakingly wrote, "I want to live."

The film crew arrived back in Spain shortly before the bombing started and when it did, the first bomb was shown to have fallen exactly where the boys had been sitting when they were looking across the river at Baghdad's unforgettable skyline. Corcuera was determined to return and find them. It took him until late 2004, in spite of bombed neighborhoods and without any point of reference. There were only bombed homes and families huddled anywhere they could find shelter, but he found the boys.

He gives the lie to "freedom" and "democracy" in clips showing George Bush's speeches regarding "carefully selected targets" and tributes to "the honor and devoted spirit of the American military," adding, "May God bless our country." The images of the carnage in the "Paris of the ninth century," which had flourished nine hundred years before the first Christian fundamentalists (the puritan pilgrim fathers) landed in America. Corceuera shows men clutching each other close and sobbing together, they restrain weeping women in the devastation of their homes, the familiar places that the tanks guns and bombs continued to destroy. Throughout the film, Nasser Shamma's poignant and haunting music reflects every searing, subtle shift of mood.

The film also recorded denial, "We lived next to the Ministry of Defense building" said a father, so, as the bombs fell and the great edifice — which was near the soaring turquoise memorial to the possible million who had died in another Western encouraged war against Iran — disintegrated like lethal lego, "We locked ourselves in our home."

A mother talking of one of the masterpieces — the vast road bridges which span the Tigris — said, "'The Americans killed 12 people right there." Her young son, Mustapaha, said, "I saw dead bodies." Then the mother said, "He saw his uncle die before his eyes." A doctor talked of another incident and said, "The injured were burnt nd dead; in one car, only a four-year-old child survived. There was no one left to visit her. We have seen more than a person can handle, I cannot tell you what I have seen in this hospital." Then she related her neighbor digging in the rubble, looking for the injured, "Pulling out a hand here, a leg there … a helicopter attacking a hospital ... many people dying." Talking about her son, Mustapha's mother said "his soul is tired."

An ambulance driver describes his experience, saying, "I cried and cried, for so many reasons. I have nothing to say to those who supported this war. Our morgues were overflowing. We buried people in the hospital garden."

The head mistress of a school is a big woman clad all in black, she has a plump, worn face. When she is with her pupils, her love for them shines; her animation lights her from within. She said, "My life is with the children, but they live now in a state of panic, impotence and death. I lost my two daughters, my grandson, my life. They have taken from me what I love most. I am blind. I can see, but I am blind, and I wish the night never comes." Elsewhere, a ten-year-old child suddenly comments, "I wish we did not have oil," and another says, "The fear just grows and grows."

A boy, barely in his teens, yet articulate, intelligent, and a picture of normality, sits in a chair and talks of his plans. He asks, "Why am I blind? Why am I paralyzed? I stood up, I saw my friends, and in my dream I could walk again."

Is there any hope in the hell and heartbreak that the messianic criminals in Washington and London have brought to Baghdad and Iraq? An old man, who has a gentle and memorable face, talks on his little wooden craft on the Tigris, as timeless as the noble, shimmering river. He says, "You wake and see the river and you cannot feel sad. But Baghdad is crying for us to help it, crying to women, to mothers, the world has not what we have in Baghdad."

The doctor who spoke before appears again and says, "The crimes committed by the occupation exceed those of the old regime and I (suffered) under that regime. Perhaps we will laugh again, one day, perhaps we will enjoy, but we will never, ever forget."

The final shot is of the four boys who inspired the film, they shine shoes and sell black market gasoline to help their families survive. One also collects bricks with his friends to rebuild his shattered home. Bit by bit, the walls are getting higher, his siblings plant seeds in what will once more be the garden. They are sitting on the wall again, as the sunsets, gazing over the river, the birds joyously swirling and diving. They act as only free beings in liberated Iraq could do.

When Ruth Russell returned to Australia, strangers would grasp her hand and say, "Thank you, thank you for going there to represent me." Many will wish to do the same to Javier Corcuera.

People should walk over broken glass and crawl to see this film. It should be shown it outside military recruiting offices, in schools, and at public gatherings. This could be to Iraq what Born on the Fourth of July was to Vietnam.

* This article originally appeared on www.palestinechronicle.com and is republished, with slight modifications, with the kind permission of the author. Please send your feedback to artculture_egypt@yahoo.co.uk.

**Film distributor: www.eliasquerejeta.com

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