There are embedded journalists in Iraq, and then there is "Iraq in Fragments" director James Longley.
Longley, who takes war coverage far beyond the cable news channels' talking heads, collected 300 hours of footage in Iraq over two years. He operated free of military protection and protocol, living in close quarters to Iraqi civilians with the goal of allowing his camera to disappear so he could show how they live.
Nominated for a best-documentary Oscar, "Iraq in Fragments" is a vivid and stirring look into the world beyond the sound bites.
Longley, an American filmmaker, divides his documentary into three segments.
The first involves a Sunni boy in Baghdad vacillating between school and a job working for an abusive boss at a car shop.
Then Longley shifts to southern Iraq, the fundamentalist Shiite region under the control of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, where the American presence seems to be most despised.
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Finally, Longley heads to the north and spends time with Kurds, who bubble with frustration and angst and long to escape their continuing persecution by other Iraqis.
What emerges is a surprisingly relatable social milieu. Longley paints a portrait of Iraq as a house divided. It's a country with ills that can't be cured even by the American wonder drug of democracy.
While recent war-themed Iraq documentaries such as "Gunner Palace," "Occupation: Dreamland" and "The War Tapes" aim for spectacle and danger, "Iraq in Fragments" focuses on everyday life, peppered with the uncertainty of the ongoing war.
Longley's footage is gripping, but it doesn't quite jell as a complete film. The material seems better suited to an HBO miniseries, which would give the subjects space to breathe and develop rather than stand as quickly cut, concentrated symbols for their regions.
Iraq in Fragments
***
Rated: Not rated.
Director: James Longley.
Family call: It's a war film. Not for kids.
Running time: 94 minutes.
