No End in Sight
Director: Charles Ferguson. Writer: Charles Ferguson. Cinematography: Antonio Rossi. Film editing: Chad Beck, Cindy Lee. Music: Peter Nashel. Producers: Charles Ferguson, Jennie Amias, Audrey Marrs, Jessie Vogelson. With: RichardArmitage, Faisal Al-Istrabadi, Chris Allbritton, James Bamford, Amazia Baram, Jamal Benomar, Linda Blimes, Ambassador Barbara Bodine. USA. 102 min. 2007.
Nobody who’s paid close attention to the war in Iraq will find much in this documentary that’s new, but Charles Ferguson and his collaborators do an invaluable service by assembling what’s already known into a clear, cogent, and compelling narrative. It illustrates once again why the conflict has turned into such a disaster (hint: rank incompetence and unspeakably bad faith at the highest levels of the American government) and why its disastrous consequences must be recognized by everyone—and corrected by those in power—as thoroughly as possible and as soon as possible.
And even people who have a strong interest in the war will probably find a few things here they haven’t heard before. I was struck, for example, by an interviewee’s account of running into one of his former students, who’d just graduated from college and was now working in Bagdad for the U.S.-led coalition authorities. Asked about her assignment, she said she was devising a new traffic system for the city; asked if she had any experience in urban planning, she said she didn’t, and she couldn’t believe her luck in landing such a terrific job!
The movie’s executive producer is Alex Gibney, whose directorial credits include the nonfiction films “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” and “Taxi to the Dark Side,” released in 2005 and 2007, respectively; he also had a hand in producing such first-rate topical documentaries as “The Trials of Henry Kissinger” in 2002 and “Soldiers in the Army of God” in 2000. At this rate he may soon rival Michael Moore as an indispensable figure in sociopolitical cinema. – David Sterritt
