Hunting Down Culture in Baghdad

Wall Street Journal ^ | April 22, 2008 | Melik Kaylan

[moderatewolverine]

Uncovering embers of cultural life in Baghdad as the city struggles out of civil war is a little like watching Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in action: The closer you observe things, the more hidden and elusive they seem. At the simplest level, routine details such as the time, place and duration of rare piano recitals or art openings are shrouded in mystery for security's sake. In a town almost comprehensively segregated into sectarian areas, where one man's performance is another's blasphemy, such information is intelligence hard to come by. You are just as likely -- especially if you're Iraqi -- to get disinformation or rumor. Shooting "Underexposure," one of only three major Iraqi movies to have come out in recent years. It was made with unused film discovered in the National Film Archives.

It's nothing new in Baghdad for culture to keep a sharp eye on power and vice versa. After all, Scheherazade told her labyrinthine tales of old Baghdad to bamboozle the sultan's eye. A millennium later it was no longer the sultan's eye, but Saddam's. Under Saddam, virtually all cultural institutions had Baath party spies in their midst. Nonparty folk seldom progressed. Extensive Stasi-like files monitored everyone. A well-directed whisper led not just to the downfall of rivals but often also to their sudden disappearance. In theater, film and academe, unconfirmed suspicions and silent hatreds flourished, none of which -- who did what to whom and why -- has come clear in the post-Saddam era. Instead, many intellectuals have been anonymously killed and most of the Baath party files have disappeared -- including those deliberately stolen in the sacking of the National Archives after the allied invasion.

[moderatewolverine]

Edit: “Shooting “Underexposure,” one of only three major Iraqi movies to have come out in recent years. It was made with unused film discovered in the National Film Archives.” should not be at the end of that first paragraph.