In what must be one of the first documentaries to deal with the actual experience of American soldiers involved in the Iraqi war (I imagine more will follow) Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein’s Gunner Palace is, in its way, a triumph of understatement. It is not a great film by any means, but it is intriguing, engaging, and more than a little troubling. Tucker lived with the soldiers, bunking with them in the bombed out Azimiya Palace, last occupied by Uday Hussein and built by Saddam Hussein. It was in many ways the perfect venue, in the heart of Baghdad, Adhamiya. Following the conventional wisdom that “less is more” Tucker takes an almost parenthetical approach to the lives of the soldiers of 2/3 Field Artillery, showing us what happens before and after raids and skirmishes get really violent and disturbing, and the downtimes when the soldiers are relaxing, reflecting and taking time out for some rest and recreation. We see them swimming, golfing, partying, playing the guitar, fixing a Humvee, breaking down doors, and trying to kill a rat. Several of the soldiers use rapping to sort out their feelings and blow off steam. Their off-the-cuff candor is strangely moving, and I think, at the heart of Gunner Palace’s strategy.
It’s not unusual, I suppose, for a documentary (or many theatrical films, for that matter) to find a dry, matter-of-fact tone, but Gunner Palace is something else again. From the outset a soldier makes an analogy between the current craze for reality shows and the truth of their perilous, day- to-day existence, and it’s as if Tucker were trying to replicate the dull, trance-inducing technique of television broadcasting. Needless to say, this sort of wry, imitative spin is not without its hazards. The responsibility pretty much falls on the audience to figure out why, or the significance behind this kind of studied artlessness. I’m not saying its bad, but sometimes Gunner Palace can be fairly listless, and I’m not sure if the folks who need to will grasp the irony of Americans who gauge the world primarily through a television camera and subsequently, the entertainment value of The Iraqi War or its lack thereof. More than one soldier comments on the ongoing debate over U.S. war in Iraq by folks who have no genuine investment in the outcome or casualties, only the need to advance personal ideologies. Gunner Palace’s greatest strength is its documentation of the thoughts and attitudes of the soldiers themselves.
Gunner Palace does not try to suggest our soldiers are not heroes, and perhaps their heroism is evinced in their calm, unfazed behavior. When asked if they ever take attacks personally, an officer explains that doing so would only make them less effective. They are definitely not cavalier, but we are struck by the demeanor of the soldiers, which is that of men and women only there to do a job. And I don’t mean cool affectation or restrained bravado (though Tucker’s approach is all about restraint) there’s really no hint that they desire glory or citation. Tucker chooses a number of different soldiers to follow and we get to know them as the film advances, seeing them as they go through their routines. It’s alarming when they describe how some Iraqis welcome and others despise them. How a group of adoring Iraqi children might include an assassin or insurrectionist. And while they don’t like the hostility and ambivalence of the Iraqi people they take it in stride. They never seem enraged or overwhelmed even though they are surrounded 24/7 by imminent danger. And they’re very comfortable with their feelings.
As with many competent, compelling documentary films, Tucker probably got a leg up by living with the soldiers, facilitating their spontaneity and comfort. By making them seem ordinary he ratchets up their eloquence, without plucking at our heartstrings the way Capra might have. En route to an attack, Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries plays, in wry contrast to the exhilarating helicopter formation in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. No aggression or megalomania here. Time Magazine honors them as “Persons of the Year” but the awards are in some cases posthumous. When “characters” we’ve become attached to die, it’s sorrowful because we never see the reactions of others. Their deaths are diminished by the distortion of protocol and media spin. When a couple of the soldiers, without a trace of passion or pontification are unwilling to justify the taking of another human being’s life, when one of them says, he can’t think of a single time in history when anything good was accomplished by one person killing another, the effect, in its quiet way, is stunning.