I wish I could remember the names of the guys that make up Acrassicauda, given that I'm somewhat horrible with names I'm not even going to try. Eddy Moretti (got that name right) the director, sets out to make a documentary about a metal group in Baghdad, and in doing so he does a great job of showing the viewer the passion that these men have to play their music to the backdrop of complete chaos and devastating violence. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Metal music in a war zone? Fitting. To some degree these guys are more legit than Slipknot or Slayer (yes, I said it). Not that you need an excuse to play your music, but after watching this film it almost make me feel guilty for making excuses for my "hard" or "complicated" life and it makes me wonder about the legitimacy of Slipknot screaming about some girl or satan or whatever they sing about these days.
I really liked this film because the unique story Moretti tells, but what really drew me in was that it put a face on the Iraq war. Unlike many Iraq documentaries before and after, it doesn't set out to make a political point albeit Moretti has one. But his political bias is not the focus of the film which makes his work shine. I can't even count the amount of docu films that are just so blatantly bias and are marketed as fact, when it is quite evident that it is not. I understand that when someone is telling a story it is impossible to get away from the story tellers bias no matter how hard she/he tries to keep bias out of it. But I believe that we've come to deposit too much stock in these stories (thank you Michael Moore) and take them at face value without too much questioning. Anyway, enough of that... Moretti does a good job trying to focus on the band and their perspective of what is happening to them and their country without interjecting his own conclusions too much.
For me the most poignant part of the film was the last couple of frames. The band members sit down to watch a rough cut of the footage that Moretti has already spliced together. After the scene in which the band's practice spot is shown to be bombed out, one of the band members emotionally breaks before our eyes, and lets out: "This is the time you [while pointing at the camera] change the fucking channel or turn off the tv. How dare you! this is the time where you cannot be bothered with this... Pigs."
I don't know if he was talking to Moretti, which I don't think he was. But I took it that he was speaking directly to me, the people watching the film, the American's watching the news broadcast on the Tele that turn it off when they hear of the latest car bomb going off. I didn't sense animosity directed at America from the band, but a severe sense of frustration about the situation that Iraq was/is going through. Which in turn forces me to think about what my country has done in the last five years. With that said, I believe it is a problem- whenever I watch these kind of movies, the people I'm around start squawking about how unjust the war is, why we went there in the first place... blah blah blah. Singing to the choir and everyone feels good about themselves because they "understand" Iraq. Perhaps it aliviates guilt. **** that. What is done is done. Nothing is really served by revisiting that now, and from what I gather from these band members that isn't what they want either. Rather, from those last couple of frames, they are wanting America to take responsibility for what has happened and not walk away now that the damage is done. Don't turn the TV off when Iraq is in the news. I guess that what happens when you put a face to a war that no one understands, at the risk of sounding preachy, but I feel a huge sense of responsibility and respect towards the Iraqi people... With the election season in full swing it is hard for me to think what these band members think when they hear the calls from Americans to get out as soon as possible or on the flip side staying for 100 years. Oh wait... this is boring, let's change the channel.