'The War Tapes': Iraq documentary takes a personal approach

If the Vietnam war was fought, and perhaps lost, on the television nightly news, then perhaps the war in Iraq will be noted for being waged and chronicled in documentary feature films.

We get a harrowing glimpse of the chaos in Deborah Scranton's The War Tapes, as effective as any account in any other medium. Instead of heading to the Middle East and becoming embedded with deployed members of the New Hampshire National Guard, Scranton gave mini-videocameras to three such soldiers and got them to narrate and record their word-and-picture images of life in the midst of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" two years ago.

SenArt Films 'The War Tapes' B+ The verdict: Three soldiers' views of the Iraqi conflict, harrowing yet carefully balanced. Director: Deborah Scranton Starring: Stephen Pink, Michael Moriarty, Zack Bazzi, Lindsay Coletti, Randi Moriarty Run time: 97 minutes Release date: April 29, 2006 Rating: Not rated. On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'The War Tapes'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

While it is not clear how the three amateur videographers were selected, what the project yields is refreshingly absent of a political agenda. True, it seems unlikely to be used as a military recruitment tool, but the portraits of war are conveyed without much disparagement and the trio of principals largely remain committed to the importance of our efforts in that dusty, arid desert land.

The oldest of the three at age 34 is Specialist Mike Moriarty, an aviation mechanic with a wife and two small boys. He volunteered to go to Iraq soon after 9/11, out of patriotic duty and a search for revenge.

The most complex and verbal of the group is Sergeant Steve Pink, 24, a skilled carpenter who yearns to become a writer. As he surveys the terrain, he often reads to us from his journal, filled with his candid observations of quixotic military life and an undercurrent of bitterness.

And then there is Sergeant Zack Bazzi, also 24, a Lebanese-American veteran of Bosnia and Kosovo, whose mother brought him to the United States as a child to escape the civil war in Lebanon, only to watch him go back in harm's way in the Middle East. Acutely aware of cultural distinctions, Bazzi notes the lack of training given the American soldiers to be able to communicate with the Iraqi people they are supposed to be liberating.

With the camera mounted on helmets, vehicle dashboards or even gun turrets, we go out on patrol with the army, often encountering gunfire, shelling and the occasional IED (Improvised Explosive Device). There is a great deal of gallows humor in response to the imminent danger, but it evaporates quickly when Moriarty chillingly describes an Iraqi woman crushed by a convoy of trucks.

The men's world in Iraq is interspersed with interviews with those they left at home — a wife, a girlfriend, a mother, all trying to show a brave face along with barely concealed apprehension. Although not as effective as the soldiers' first-person accounts, these glimpses of the home front pay off when the Guardsmen return stateside.

Scranton and her editing crew blend the three-pronged tale effectively. The men express their stark feelings about the war, but the conclusions are left up to each of us.