This is yet another polemic DVD in a long line that started with Fahrenhype 9/11 and took a turn for the worse with Celsius 41.11. I have to hand it to Michael Moore, his movies may be full of lies and distortions but they are entertaining. This thing, which was directed by Rob Cartee and narrated by Mark Taylor, felt like an hour-long infomercial for GOP talking points. The entire time I sat watching it I kept thinking to myself, “Does this movie have a point?” The left in America felt the invasion of Iraq was illegal and when no WMD’s were found they seemed to have been validated in that belief. Enter “Buried in the Sand” which appears to be a response to that argument in pictures. There’s 101 cogent and well thought out reasons to have invaded Iraq and this movie drives home the most irrelevant one of all: Saddam Hussein tortured some of his people.
Has political debate in this country really come to this? In order to present an argument that favors preemption and confrontation over appeasement we now need to resort to snuff films. I’ve read other reviews of this documentary and I’m not sure we were watching the same thing. This was 90 minutes of some vague narration and grotesque images of abuse toward the Iraqi people. We see over and over again grainy images of men being whipped in the face and on the heels of their feet; beaten in one place until the kidney fails; hands chopped off; beheadings; arms purposely broken; and a stoning. I guess if you’ve been asleep since September 11th, 2001, this stuff will shock you…as the narrator said over and over and over and over and over again. However, for the folks that are aware of what’s going on the world it shouldn’t come as a great shock that people in the “old world” can be absolutely vile to one another.
The problem I have with this documentary is that it doesn’t present any arguments in any kind of context. It’s a series of violent and horrific images that rival a Troma film with less of a plot line. Even Fahrenheit 9/11 had some aspect of a story to it. This was, as I stated above, nothing more than a snuff film and a cheap advertisement of hawkish talking points. In the year or so I was making arguments for going to war with Iraq, not once did I say, “We need to invade his country in order to stop the torture.” Yes it was a very good thing we did by going in there and ridding the Iraqi people of the Hussein family but if you really wanted to invade some place for humanitarian purposes, you might want to start first with Central Africa.
I felt that there was nothing new to be learned from this movie unless you really didn’t know how to enact a “stoning”. The points the narrator makes in this movie could have been taken directly from Sean Hannity’s talking points memo because they were just as juvenile. I can only assume that the point of this thing is for the good folks of Middle America to see it and become indignant with self-righteous determination to rid the world of “evil doers” like Saddam Hussein.
Well you know what, the world is not that simple. As hawkish as I am about National Security, there has to be more to validate any use of the American Armed Forces than the plot outline of a He-Man cartoon. I think this documentary is insulting to the American public. It strips away all of the nuance and debate and leaves you with this context free image of a barbaric place and one should be left feeling like it’s our duty to liberate it. That’s a childish GOP commercial, not a respectable presentation of the horrors of the Hussein regime.
If you truly feel like you cannot establish a cogent opinion on the Iraq War without seeing up-close images of beheadings and whippings then this is your movie. However, if you can string two thoughts together and have some knowledge of the world beyond your own neighborhood then don’t waste your time or money. If you want a movie that truly takes you into the heart of Baghdad then see “Voices of Iraq”.
“The producers of this groundbreaking documentary distributed 150 digital video cameras across Iraq to enable everyday people -- mothers, children, teachers, sheiks, even insurgents -- to voice their perspectives on issues such as war, terror and the democratic reform. The result is a unique tableau documenting Iraqis' lives and their hopes as they struggle with years of turmoil and strive to build a civil society.” (Credit Netflix.com)
This movie shows some of the graphic violence that the Iraqi’s had to endure but it tells a much better story. Instead of hammering you over the head with some ham handed excuse for “liberating” a country, it lets the Iraqi’s tell their own narrative and leaves you with enough information to decide on your own.
If “Buried in the Sand” and “Celsius 41.11” are the high-watermark for conservative documentaries then boy are we in trouble. For the love of all that is pure and good in the cinematic world, please stop making these stupid movies. They are not entertaining and they insult the voters.
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