My Thoughts, My Thoughts on "My Country, My Country"

I certainly enjoyed the 2007 Academy Award best documentary nominated film, My Country, My Country.

The film follows Dr. Riyadh, a Sunni Muslim who is passionate about democracy, but also unhappy with the foreign occupation. The film follows him as he runs for office under the Islamic Party in the controversial 2005 election. The film follows him in dealing with his family of 6 children, his medical practice, an inspection of the Abu Gharib prison, and trying to gain supports of hostel and indifferent Sunni's in his district.

This film on many levels is very interesting. It plays more like a national geographic picture article than a tightly woven narrative story. It creates an emotion and shows images that leaves CNN and Fox News in the dust. At the same time, I felt like Laura Poitras had amazing film clips she didn't know what to do with, but really wanted to use, and so they sneaked there way into the film.

Probably more than anything, the part I found interesting was seeing how the United States military and UN went about organizing such massive elections for Iraq, and even more interesting was the ways in which they tried to make it appear that Iraqi's were the one's conducting the election.

Related Tags: My Country My Country, Iraq, Academy Award, Documentary, Laura Poitras, Dr Riyadh, Islam, Muslim, Sunni, Elections, Democracy