The Dreams of Sparrows

The Dreams of Sparrows

Media giants and the Media underground now use Iraqi stringers almost exclusively because it's too dangerous to explore Iraq for most foreign journalists. Only the intrepid few dare to take the risks. Filmmakers Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brohy who made The Oil Factor and blogger Dahr Jamail are among the exceptions.
October 24th, 2006 wouldn't be the first time that the Palestine Hotel, a favorite refuge for foreign journalists in Baghdad was rocked by explosions from all sides of the conflict. That evening 20 Iraqis were killed by the blasts. According to Leif Utne of the Utne Reader, Hayder Daffar, the hotel night clerk and the director of The Dreams of Sparrows escaped with cuts and bruises.
His film at the beginning takes surprisingly gentle and subtle approach towards life death and war in Iraq. The horror builds slowly.
In one amazing close-up, a silver-plated Colt 45 handgun fills the screen. The camera pulls out and back to reveal it is held in the hand of an 8-year-old boy. The boy points the gun at a passing toddler. The toddler's older brother hurls a rock in response. After this segment of the film there is an awkward cut an odd and mysterious interval as if the next segment of the film were cut out or maybe the film ran out? In the next shot a young bearded man is holding the gun cautiously, shielding behind his back as if he took it out of the hands of the boy. The boy stands by sheepishly.
Later motorists idling in a long static line are interviewed. They've been waiting on average 4 hours to get gas. The line, several miles long must be shown in jerky fast motion in order to reveal the full impact of war related shortages. This scene begs the question: Is the U.S. military deliberately creating the shortage or are insurgents blowing up the pipelines? The answer is not clear. But one thing is made clear by the film—If you need gas or if you want to make some cash you buy gas on the black market from a guy who has the patience and enough gas cans to hoard gasoline.
Things go from bad to worse. Daffar visits an all girls' school where the students show clever drawings full of tanks helicopters, bombs and guns. Later in the film while visiting museum galleries professional artists also show horrifying sculptures of hooded torture victims from Abu Ghraib prison and paintings of mass graves and the grief stricken to illustrate genocide by Saddam Hussein. Later Daffar’s camera travels down a crumbled trash strewn puddle filled street towards a so-called children’s shelter. The place turns out to be a ruined shell of building full of glue sniffing adolescent boys. They tell him that others calling themselves filmmakers solicited them for pornographic purposes. Later the filmmakers visit a mental hospital. Some of the patients are ill as of result of torture by Saddam Hussein’s son Uday. Often the wrong people are lock up in mental hospitals. An Iraqi writer who also helped make the film admits to playing mentally ill for 4 years beginning in 1986 just to avoid being tortured and likely killed.
One of the most haunting scenes occurs when Daffar visits a dusty tent filled Palestinian refugee camp. His voice-over explains that Saddam had provided housing for them from wealthy citizens with room to spare but when the war started they were evicted. A beautiful bashful little girl peers out from around the rough canvas of her shelter to tell him she doesn't recognize Daffar from his last visit. Her sweet shy smile belies this claim.
This film while quite current and news worthy seems a little naive in that it does not come close to explaining some of the background to this war. According to author and self described Economic Hitman John Perkins this war really started back in the late 1950s.
Iraq had a revolution in 1958. By popular demand Abdul Kassam was voted to power as president of Iraq. He demanded that oil companies pay an oil tax to benefit the Iraqi people. When he also consigned the oil companies to one tenth of one percent of the area of Iraq, he was marked for assassination. The man chosen for the task by the C. I. A. was a little known Bathist party right-winger, 19-year-old Saddam Hussein. On his third attempt in 1963 he assassinated the elected president of Iraq. The C.I.A. then installed Saddam Hussein as puppet president by and for the C.I.A. carrying out their orders on behalf of the American oil companies. For 27 years, his regime tortured, killed and terrorized Iraqi citizens. According to recent news reports, torture and terror continues in Iraq at Abu-Graib, Guantanamo, and hundreds of secret detention camps throughout Iraq, and around the world. The complete story involves most if not all of the Middle East.
The film of course does not have a happy ending. Sa'ad Fakher one of the most creative optimistic and fun loving of the group of filmmakers involved in the film is killed when he accidentally drifts into the so-called “area 55” ironically trying to avoid Iraqi gun fire. Fakher, shown earlier in the film singing and playing a mandolin, is presumed lost on a dark street when he unknowingly drives his car through a heavily fortified area. His car is shredded by American bullets according to the film and later found with its upholstery completely blood soaked. He initially survives the onslaught but cannot walk to safety. His lungs liver and legs are lacerated. Later another of the filmmakers near tears laments, “God Bless his soul. He wasn't supposed to die.” I've heard that at least four friends of the filmmakers have died so far.
The film ends with Daffar making a poignant personal statement to his American producer Aaron Raskin, “US troops and government dirty. Believe me at first we were happy. US troops hard hearted.” He also says, to paraphrase, that a “Cowboy Culture” has acculturated US troops.
According to blogger Dahr Jamail, Daffar was later kidnapped but later let go by the mujahedin when they realized who he was. I believe this happened in Fallaja, a city of rubble now protected by the mujahedin. Bomb remnants found near a school are stenciled with the words: “Made in the USA.” Iraqis say that the purpose of the bombing was to disrupt the educational system.

On the Web:

The Dreams of Sparrows
a film by Hayder Daffar & Aaron Raskin

Harbinger Productions News

The Oil Factor
a film by Gerard Ungerman & Audrey Brohy

Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches

Economic Hit Man John Perkins