Beyond Fahrenheit 9/11

It's looking like a plum year for documentaries, isn't it?

Like many of you, I'm looking forward to the release of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 -- not necessarily for the film itself, but for the reaction to it.

Actually, I find Moore's films to be guilty pleasures. I'm well aware that sprinkled throughout most of them are various factual errors, mostly minor ones, but enough to bring out the censurious editor in me. At the same time, Moore is not only an imaginative filmmaker with astonishing narrative skills, he's also a very clever political provocateur who concocts really hilarious stunts that have the virtue of making his point incisively. I expect 9/11, which hits theaters Friday, will be more of the same.

Perhaps buried in the hoopla over Moore will be The Hunting of the President, the Harry Thomason documentary based on the Joe Conason-Gene Lyons classic about the Clinton Wars. I'm probably even more eager to see it than 9/11, even though its perspective is decidedly more in retrospect. (Atrios has actually attended its New York premiere, the lucky dog, and gives us an early lowdown.)

But the important thing to remember is that THOTP is not ancient history: It's very much about current events. The same people who brought us the impeachment fiasco are now running the show in the Bush administration (see, e.g., Ted Olson). The past is never past.

Getting much less attention, certainly, but also well worth a look are two other documentaries, both of which offer rather nuanced treatment of difficult subjects. I have no idea whether they'll show in Seattle, but I'm keeping an eye out for them.

The first is a film titled The Letter, a documentary about tensions in Lewiston, Maine, after a substantial population of Somali refugees made the city their home. It takes its title from a missive written by the city's mayor to the Somalis, asking them to stop coming.

As Ziah Hamseh, the filmmaker, explained in the article:

... "A firestorm erupted when Mayor Larry Raymond of Lewiston sent an open letter to 1,100 newly arrived Somali refugees advising them that the city's resources are strained to the limit and asking other Somalis not to move to the city. Interpreted as a rallying cry by white supremacist groups across the United States. The Letter documents the crossfire of emotions and events that culminated in a hate rally convened by the World Church of the Creator and a counter peace rally with more than 4,000 Lewiston residents supporting ethnic diversity," he said.

Hamzeh said he spent two years in Lewiston filming, and it was dangerous at times.

"The white supremacists, seeing a venue for their own agenda, swooped into town and many ordinary citizens became threatened and fearful. It was dangerous because I was meeting with Neo-Nazis in their homes, but this story and the plight of the Somalis became my obsession. I set out searching for the truth, tracing the events that led to the chaos that engulfed that city," Hamzeh said.

The last is a documentary by a former Seattlite named Mike Tucker, who put together a film about life in the 2/3 Field Artillery unit in Baghdad, titled Gunner Palace.

Among the soldiers Tucker interviewed and spent time with was a young man from Kent, a middle-class suburb south of Seattle, named Ben Colgan. A few weeks later, Colgan -- whose parents are antiwar activists -- was killed.

Tucker sent me an e-mail describing the film and hoping my readers give it a look:

As we are out of the major festival cycle, we decided to go ahead and post a few clips from the film -- scenes that we think are definitive not only of what we have captured, but of the experience. In one scene a soldier does a freestyle rap; in another, a young soldier plays a very electric version of the Star Spangled Banner on the roof of Uday Hussein's Palace.

After Abu Ghraib, after the massive amounts of attention paid to M. Moore's F911, it is our hope that this film is at the center of an American conversation, about who we are and where we are going. We hope to find a middle ground, not division. That's happening right now. On blogs ranging from antiwar.org to military sites, people are embracing the story and the reaction has been, more often than not, surprising.

That's where this ties into the culture war. Over the last week, as people write me -- I just received a letter from the mother of a soldier who died in the unit I filmed -- I sense exhaustion. America has been at war for almost three years. Much soul searching is going on, but there is also much rabid commentary. Ann Coulter thinks Iraq is a raging success; Michael Moore thinks the insurgents are "the Minutemen". To both, I suggest a soft-skinned HUMVEE ride through Baghdad. America is ailing, I hope there is a way to bring the war to the table of a constructive discussion free from stubborn rhetoric.

Of course, in the current climate, I'm not sure how free we can ever be from "stubborn rhetoric." But it's true that the exhaustion is setting in. Which in turn means that perhaps the people who have exhorted us to "support our troops" will realize that the best way to do that is to get them the hell out of Iraq.