War Feels Like War - REVIEWS (cont)

that picture. And a food distribution truck with a cameraman on the roof, filming the hungry fighting mob almost as if it had been created for him. The relationship between the press and the military was an interesting one. There appeared to be respect and disdain from both sides. Some of the
journalists seemed to think they were in the army, advancing with their cameras, diving for cover, lining up and firing off rounds together with the troops. When someone shouted, "Let's go, baby, load it up", it was not clear if it was a photographer or a soldier. There was no commentary; everything just
spoke for itself. I think I got a better idea of what the war felt like from this documentary than I did from hours of Rageh Omaar's red-fleece reports from the roof of the Palestine Hotel.

The Guardian (preview)
“This might be the first documentary to show the reality of modern war without bias. Essentially a film about war journalists in Iraq trying to do their job, the footage that it contains reveals far more about what happened over there than their dispatches ever did. It starts with farcical scenes in Kuwait as the war journalists are taken on a tour of the US army’s parcel-sending network, then it gets rather more serious; the chaos of food supplies, the bombing of the Palestine Hotel, US soldiers brutalising Iraqi civilians. Meanwhile a young photographer pushes a grieving mother out of the way to get a shot of her dead son and three ITN journalists are killed in a US bombing.”

LINKS

Esteban’s own website: http://www.uyarrafilms.co.uk

BBC Storyville Interview:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/storyville/esteban-uyarra.shtml

Quantara.de: interview and review of film:
http://www.quantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-310/_nr-43/i.html