Gunner Palace

Let's see if we can't generate a little movie buzz. The movie in question is Gunner Palace, it opens March 4th and is in serious need of buzz. It's a documentary on U.S. soldiers based in an old palace of Saddams. Go watch the Trailer. Then tell your friends. Regardless of where you stand on the war this is something you need to see. We all need to see it. The Washington Note has seen it:

Michael Tucker, the Director, has an interesting product in this film because I'm convinced that while he is giving his viewers insights into the realities of soldiers who are on the front-line patrolling nasty Baghdad neighborhoods, those who see this film will see their biases reinforced. With my head wired to be a pro-Bush, pro-war American, I saw brave soldiers doing what needed to be done for an idealism worth dying for (and some of them did indeed die).

But as someone opposed to this war from the beginning, I saw a clash of cultures and objectives that was never going to be softened and an enormous chasm between troops who were heavy in armour and guns and the Iraqi population heavy in complexity, religion, and opaque social norms. I felt terrible for some of the Iraqis in this film whose homes were destroyed when the soldiers had to break in -- but you could see in their eyes a powerful sense of disdain for the Americans and a confidence that the Iraqis, no matter what their plight, would be there long after the Americans were gone.