accessAtlanta

'My Country, My Country': Iraq seen from the inside

Just when you thought filmmakers had run out of angles from which to view the war in Iraq, Laura Poitras arrives with a documentary affording one of the best looks yet at individuals who lived in the country before Americans arrived, will stay after they leave, and have the greatest stake in ensuring that the changes taking place around them are for the better.

Zeitgeist Films 'My Country, My Country' 3 out of 5 stars The verdict: Affords a sympathetic look at those with the greatest stake in Iraq's future. Director: Laura Poitras Starring: Riyadh al-Adhadh, Peter Towndrow, Carlos Valenzuela, Captain Kris Scarcliff Run time: 90 minutes Release date: August 4, 2006 Rating: Not rated. On the web Official movie site Rate 'My Country, My Country'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

If the title conjures off-putting images of continuous lamentation, the film's subject has much more to offer. A physician who has decided to join the multitudes running for elected office in Baghdad, the middle-aged Dr. Riyadh is clearly carrying a burden of grief but hasn't given up hope that his country can be healed, both literally and politically.

He spends his days with patients at a free clinic, and occasionally hands out cash to those in need of more than medical advice. In between appointments (and sometimes, a bit disorientingly, while conducting them), he attends to political chores: He stops on the street to ask if people are planning to vote in the January 2005 election, encouraging wary Sunnis not to shun the polls. If they are voting, he asks whom they'll support.

Rather than wait to hold office, Riyadh is busy with improving the state of things in Baghdad. He meets with representatives of the U.N. and the U.S. military (who are in general presented as compassionate and professional, if saddled with an overwhelming task), and acts as a spokesman when raids in Fallujah threaten the lives of his neighbors' family members. He travels to the Abu Ghraib prison, taking a census of the very old, the very young, and the men who have been held over a year without charges. And he worries aloud about the legitimacy of a "puppet government" in charge of his occupied country.

Riyadh is no saint, and the cloud of discouragement over his head is particularly noticeable at home, where his opinionated wife and daughters doubt the wisdom of his campaign. We have no reason to hope for a happy ending to this chapter in his story, but getting to spend so much time with this small clan, our sympathy for his efforts takes on a new dimension.