Gunner Palace

Remarkable movie.

It really makes you think and want to talk about your own perspectives on the war.

Coming from Seattle, it was particularly moving to hear the director talk about the death of Ben Colgan. He was a local boy and well loved.

This is the most honest representation of Iraq I've seen yet. It must be good since so many other directors are using a similar format in upcoming documentaries. To learn more about the making of the movie, check out the Apple computers website, and Gunner Palace website. I would encourage you to read Michael's diary about the making of the movie, his emails home to his wife and daughter, and the emails from the troops and their families. They are moving.

Great movie, makes you think.

Gunner Palace, a documentary by Michael Tucker that follows the U.S. Army's 2/3 Field Artillery for two months while the cope with occupation duty in Iraq. The title is a conflation of the nickname of the unit, The Gunners, and the fact that they have set up shop in a bombed out palace of Uday Hussein.

I can't find it on the web, but I read a bio that the filmmaker served in the mid to late 80s, roughly the same time I was in the Army. I've latched onto the fact (and I hope it is true) because it explains the tone of the film. When I walked out, I told Jim, who had seen it with me, that this guy wanted to make an anti-war movie, but couldn't quite bring himself to do it.

What we see is as much cinema verities we are likely to get in this politically radioactive conflict. Tucker lets the young troops pretty much be young troops for the camera. They all to some extent (and one in particular a great deal) mug for the camera and utter their doubts, concerns and reveal their conflicts. There don't appear to be many people above the age of thirty, though I find it hard to believe that an entire battalion would be so comprised.

We also see soldier show great restraint in difficult situations. In one scene, a drugged out, dirty and bedraggled street urchin is delivered to a place where he will hopefully find some sort of care. The GIs are careful, almost solicitous of the child, demonstrating a great deal of tenderness when considered in context of the fact that they are in a city where they are compelled to carry heavy weapons and wear body armor.

There is a lot of very scraggly video of nighttime raids. Bear in mind that field artillerymen are trained to shoot high-explosives over the horizon and wreck stuff, not tool around a foreign capital like cops. Again, these young men show tremendous restraint as they round up people suspected of manufacturing roadside bombs and lobbing mortars at their temporary home.

You feel a sense of futility at times as you watch, but a 60 day snapshot of a difficult mission is going to do that. Some of the soldiers make statements that could be found on you garden variety Bush = Hitler website, and it broke my heart. What they are doing is noble and necessary given the condition of the world, though a 20 year old would be hard pressed to put it into proper context. It is a shame for anyone over there doing their best to not feel their due honor.

If you rabidly feel one should speak-no-evil of the war while we are at war, Gunner Palace will irk you or worse. I found it to be sufficiently truthful and sincere to be a must-see. Pro-war and anti-war folk will find inspiration, which may mean it was done just about right.

This movie through all its cursing, violence and drug references, this movie takes the "BS" out of the media's broadcasts and throws you straight into what little sense of "reality" one can get of war on the big screen. It leaves the politics behind and puts you straight in the middle of The Sandbox with the men and women who fight for this country. This movie will probably have you laughing your tail end off then in a somber silence in a matter of seconds. Political bias aside, Gunner Palace is something every citizen of the world needs to see, preferably before the next special report on what's "happening" in Iraq.

All this said, I personally walked away with a greater sense of pride in my country's soldiers, in the eyes of everyone of the speakers in this movie I saw those of my friends who have been there or who are there. This movie has moved me in a way which I shall not soon forget. The look of sheer terror and hope all on the same face has a profound effect on one's soul.

The first thing that struck me was that most of the American soldiers portrayed in this documentary apparently were small town guys, with little education and not as articulate as one would hope. They joined the military not out of patriotism, but for imagined adventure. It was the army or community college. I can sympathize with them and at the same time I can understand why the Iraqi people don't like them. They are crass, bullying and overbearing.But they also are willing to take tremendous risks and are sincere in their efforts to bring stability to a country thousands of miles from their own.

The entire Iraqi war seems to be a tragic, confusing mess and where it goes from here, no one really knows. The American soldiers, many just kids fresh out of high school, really want to put in their time and go home. But we know, even if they survive, they will never be the same again.

An interesting, if somewhat aimless, first hand view of American troops in Baghdad. Using what appears to be a hand held digital video camera, we're plopped in the middle of Baghdad at "Gunner Palace," a former Saddam Hussein mansion. It's now HQ for 400 soldiers on daily thrill rides through the streets of Baghdad.

The endless scenes of raids, patrols, and arrests are interspersed with rap and chat with the troops. Rapping (some of not too bad, all of it heavy on obscenity) is obviously a stress reliever for kids in a combat zone. The commentary from the soldiers is sometimes funny, and sometimes tragic.

I'm not sure how they got to make this film. I thought all the journalists were confined to the safety of the Green Zone. This crew is on the scene, in the humvees, and on patrol with soldiers. It's fascinating footage...even if it seems like a lot of the patrols are pointless.

If you want to get a sense of what it's like to live in fear 24/7, to wonder whether a bag left on the curb is going to blow you up, and whether you'll be forgotten by the people back home, this is your flick. At 1 hour, 26 minutes, it's not a big time commitment. But if you want something with a plot, that teaches you about life, or that has a happy ending, don't bother. War doesn't have any of those things.