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A good documentary that should have come out three years ago.

In 2003, print journalist Steve Connors and photojournalist Molly Bingham noticed that Coalition forces weren’t treated as liberators but as occupiers after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The Bush Administration had predicted that the Iraqi people would celebrate that they were no longer under the thumb of a tyrannical ruler.  As well all know, quite the opposite happened.  The Iraqi people viewed Coalition forces as a hostile group that came to enslave them.  Over the next ten month, Connors and Bingham wanted to know who was leading the resistance and why they weren’t happy to be freed from Saddam Hussein.  The results of their efforts is the new documentary Meeting Resistance.

Their search for answers leads them to Al Adhamiya, a district just north of Baghdad.  They interviewed a wide variety of people each a valid reason for joining the resistance.  Their subject matters vary in just about every detail except for one constant; they all want to see the occupiers forced out.  Age, religious devotion, education, military training, ideology, range from one end of the spectrum to the other.  The subjects aren’t the criminal fanatics that we’ve been lead to believe on the nightly news.  The insurgency is mostly made of the doctors, teachers, artist, students and other members of society inside Iraqi and not rouge forces streaming across the boarder.

While the documentary is disturbing and provocative, it feels a little too late.  We already know most of what Meeting Resistance has to say.  If the film had been released three or four years ago when the resistance was fresh, the film would have had a greater impact.  As it stands, Meeting Resistance is a reminder of how badly Coalition Forces were led and how royally the Bush Administration screwed things up.  What also hurts the film is the lack of narration and the fact that none of the interviewees would allow their faces to be photographed.  By the time the film is over, you’ll be tired of watching out of focus faces, hands pouring tea, children playing and soldiers.  The lack of narration leaves the film without any context for the audience.  Without the context, the audience is left to their own devices and the message can easily get lost.

First Run Features has include a director’s commentary, statement and biographies.  Since the film is entirely subtitled, I would recommend watching the film with director’s commentary on.  Connors and Bingham are able to give the context for the film here as they share their insight into the making of the documentary, the conditions in Iraqi and their thoughts on what’s currently going on.

Meeting Resistance has merit but the message comes too late.  Connors and Bingham don’t tell us anything we don’t already know.  If it had come out as a counter message from the slop the Bush Administration was slinging, it would be hailed as an important documentary that needs to be seen. 

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