Cinematical

I nearly walked out of the screening for The Blood of My Brother a few times. It wasn't the sheep slaughtering or the war violence or even the shots of burned and crippled Iraqis. I don't have a weak stomach. What I have is a weak understanding of what is going on in Iraq, and this documentary did little to help me figure things out. It gave me the same feeling of inferiority that Syriana gave so many us. But The Blood of My Brother is not convoluted, it just isn't clear enough for the uninformed.

The part that is easy to comprehend is a story about the death of Ra'ad, the eldest son of a widowed Shi'ite family, who was killed by U.S. troops while standing guard at a mosque. The effects of his death at first seem unlike anything you'd expect from an American family in mourning, but at the same time, they are not altogether so different. Ra'ad's younger brother Ibrahim, now head of the household, wants revenge. Their mother rams her head into Ra'ad's tombstone like she's gone off the edge. Rather than letting the event take them over, though, Ibrahim and his mother take responsibility to provide for their family.

The confusing parts involve the Mehdi Army, an insurgency group without much connection to Ra'ad's family. Although I was enough aware of what the group is and what they were doing, it took a read through of the film's website to get the whole picture and also to realize that the film actually digresses often from its original focus. The sequences with the Mehdi Army are the movie's most thrilling and discomforting, as they follow the rebels as they arm up against Americans and even shoot down a U.S. helicopter. Throughout I kept wishing that I was watching a staged war movie out of Hollywood. The action is so consciously real that at one point when a bullet could be seen coming towards one side of the camera I flinched to the other side of my seat.

Now that I have caught up with the background of the film's stories, I better recognize and appreciate its importance. Yet I don't disregard the fact that it could use some narration or more informative title cards. It is hard for me to admit to my ignorance of international affairs, but knowing that I am not alone makes it easy to acknowledge the need for clarification. With a fictional film, like Syriana, such direct exposition might appear too accomodating or just plain unnecessary, but in a documentary there can only be too little explanation. Sure, some observational studies are able to just be; The Blood of My Brother, however, would be much more powerful without its images only speaking for themselves.