Independent Intervention

The Iraq War, now well into its fifth year, finds U.S. casualties mounting, although the numbers pale in comparison to the miseries inflicted on Iraq's civilian population. Norwegian filmmaker Tonje Hessen Schei directs this critique of the U.S. war in Iraq, looking at past, present, and future. The main charge here is that the corporate-controlled media "sanitized" the war, using flashy graphics and music to sell the war in its early days. Presenting several examples, particularly from Fox News, the documentary contends that the mainstream media acted more like the administration's cheerleader squad than sober journalists reporting a war. Independent Intervention looks at the headlong run-up to war, the half-forgotten "shock and awe" barrage on Baghdad, and the military's arrangement of juicy photo-ops for "embedded" reporters, while charging that the media mostly ignored the war's high human cost, particularly to women and children (viewers should be warned that the film contains many graphic images of dead and wounded civilians). Ubiquitous activists such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Amy Goodman lead the charge here, urging support for independent and alternative reporting, particularly on the Internet. While Independent Intervention raises important issues, much of this material has already been hashed over in a flood of documentaries about the war, making this an optional purchase for most. Aud: C, P. (S. Rees)