Toshikuni Doi's Fallujah

[jesty@uchicago.edu]

Hello - 

I have seen this on DVD, but I'm not sure I can give a very 
good synopsis as my memory is rather spotty.

The documentary relies almost exclusively on interviews with 
people in Fullujah who lived through the battle. As I 
remember the interviews are fairly extended, and there isn't 
a huge number of them. They are conducted in the locations 
where events took place, so the people giving their stories 
can point out where things happened. There is a doctor who 
tells about making a make-shift hospital for the wounded, 
and at least two people whose houses were destroyed and 
family members killed by American bombing. There are others 
but I can't remeber them just now.

It is powerful as a collection of people bearing witness to 
their experiences, but I didn't get much of a sense of the 
macro forces at work beyond the scars left by US forces. In 
this sense it stays pretty close to the ground. Also it 
invokes a politicized "people" of Fellujah who were attacked 
by Americans (which I take as a counter-narrative to the US 
military account of a city overrun by fighters from the 
outside). 

It seems you can get a copy of it online if you're 
interested ...

Justin


---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:18:11 -0400
>From: anne mcknight <akmck at sympatico.ca>  
>Subject: Toshikuni Doi's Fallujah  
>To: "KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu" 
<KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
>
>   Did anyone happen to see this film, a 2004 doc made
>   by a Japanese filmmaker?
>   Here is a description from the Echo Park Film Center
>   in LA, where it showed last month.
>
>   FRIDAY, MAY 12 - FALLUJA 2004 - 8PM
>   The Hollywood-Echo Park Free Pacifica Neighborhood
>   Network presents FALLUJA  2004, a documentary film
>   by Toshikuni Doi. In April 2004, the U.S. forces
>   invaded  Fallujah with thousand of soldiers. Ten
>   days after the siege was lifted, Japanese
>    independent journalist Toshikuni Doi went to
>   Fallujah to investigate the causes  of, the
>   conditions during, and damages from the invasion.
>   The documentary is  primarily in Arabic with English
>   subtitles.