The War Tapes

Earlier tonight I attended the hometown premiere Deborah Scranton's documentary film, The War Tapes. Deborah, an alum of my graduate program, was there to talk to the crowd before and answer questions after the screening of her movie, which recently won "Best Documentary" at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, and "Best International Documentary" at the 2006 Britdoc Festival.

The War Tapes is a gripping film, shot almost entirely with handheld DigiCams by members of the New Hampshire National Guard infantry division during their tour of duty. Stationed at LA Anaconda in the Sunni Triangle, the film follows three men who volunteered to be outfitted with cameras: Sgt. Steve Pink, a 24-year-old from Kingston, MA (right next door to my hometown of Plymouth), Sgt. Zack Bazzi, an Arabic-speaking Lebanese immigrant from Watertown, MA, and Specialist Mike Moriarty, a 35-year-old family man from Windsor, NH. Almost immediately we are drawn to these three personalities as they become comfortable with their newfound roles as cameramen. Although Deborah was in internet contact with the men to direct some shots from the background, for the most part she let them film as they pleased - and the result is a movie which is startlingly REAL -- something I can imagine my brother making with his friends... only thousands of miles away in the middle of a warzone.

As a result, they bring a humanity to the war that isn't the emotional drama of a so-called "reality" show. Rather, you see the honesty of normal people dealing with abnormal situations. Sometimes they're funny, writing "bigger is better" on a missile launcher. Sometimes they're pissed, sometimes they're bloodthirsty ("I wanna kill something, now!"), sometimes they're horny ("I'm gonna jerk off now because there'll be no time to jerk off later"), sometimes they're politically incorrect ("Let's just nuke the entire fucking country"), and sometimes they're just unabashedly BOYS, putting a scorpion and camel spider in a tank and cheering them on as they fight to the death. It's through these things that we see our friends, our neighbors, our fathers and our brothers.

Of course, there are moments of gravity; at one point, an Iraqi woman is killed when she is hit by one the guys' trucks as she is crossing the street. "There are cookies everywhere," one of the soldiers says. "She was carrying fucking cookies."

Providing an emotional foil to these personalities is footage of their loved ones back home, shot by Deborah and spliced between scenes of Iraq. We get to see Pink's girlfriend going about her day without him, and Moriarty's wife trying balance her job with raising her kids. Most heartwrenching for me, however, was seeing Bazzi's mother -- an bubbly Lebanese woman with a thick accent -- allowing her laughter to crumble for just that one moment when she says, "I left everything behind [in Lebanon] because I wanted to save my kids. Now here I am, and he's in the worst place in the world."

But really makes this film impressive is how it manages to remain completely apolitical. All of the men have their reasons for being in Iraq (all voluntary), and all have differing opinions about Bush, the political climate, etc. But the film itself holds back any kind of judgment of its own. As Deborah said in her talkback, "Whether we like it our not, we're a country at war. So we should damn well know what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like." The film asked 3 men to show us just that, and that's exactly what they did.

Personally, I've found myself perpetually conflicted about the Iraq War since it's inception in 2003 -- an unusual feeling for me, as I generally have very steadfast opinions about such matters. As of late, however, I find that my overwhelming perception has aligned itself closely with that of former President Clinton -- regardless of why went to Iraq and what anyone's personal opinion is of that fact, the bottom line is this:

We're there now. Let's deal with it.

Historians can argue for the 10 next millennia as to what our motivations for involvement were and whether or not destabilizing the country was a good idea, but as long as there are troops on the ground, we should forget all that BS and make the best decisions for us right NOW.

We should all start by watching this film.