Seen at the Viennale 2016: The filmmaker Abbas Fahdel did a great job in doing this documentary about the story of his family during the years that led to the fall of the Hussein regime. The movie is not one minute too long. It is easy to watch - like a long story of gossips. And this is also my main problem with this movie. So many stories are told to the man behind the camera. Very often stories about how another person was killed, robbed or otherwise treated badly. Can I believe these people shown? I am sure, some of them exaggerated, because in my experience everybody exaggerates when he tells a story to another person. What also remains as feeling is that every bad situation that hits an Iraqi is provoked by an enemy. There was not one Iraqi who put some blame on himself that they endured a dictatorship, that they got robbed (by their own people), that the streets are unsafe etc. All the time others have done something terrible wrong. Another problem of this documentary is that it seems that Abbas Fahdel seems to be part of an intellectual family. And so we see mostly the world through their eyes. We do not see the separation between possessors and non-possessors. Fahdel gives the impression that there is no tension between the middle class and the poor. The months before the beginning of war everybody was kind of excited - like expecting the beginning of a soccer world championship. The whole documentary is too biased. No wonder, because it is the story of one family. But if you have the chance to see this documentary - with all its shortcomings - go and see it!!!
