Gotham Awards

[Chris Knipp]

Have not seen Spike Lee's new documentary. I suspected the possibility of a pro-administration aspect to The Ground Truth given its recommendation in Time Magazine, never an organ of dissent. Iraq in Fragments does have the advantage of focusing on Iraqis and only on Iraqis. To me its lack of commentary is a weakness, given the complexity of the material, expecially in the middle section. The first segment and last segment have a too-limited focus, and in the big central section it's almost impossible to follow the complicated and chaotic faction picture on display. I wrote a review after seeing Iraq in Fragments at the SFIFF. If this is the best that's on offer, then despite supposedly there being a plethora of Iraq war documentaries, nothing definiitive has emerged. Is this surprising? Americans have no ability to move freely there. The place to look would be Al Jazeera. They would have more material to use. And just as the Iraqis need to rebuild their own country, let them do the documentaries about that process and the destruction that preceded it.