SXSW Film Reviews
By Marjorie Baumgarten, Fri., March 18, 2005
The Dreams of Sparrows
D: Hayder Mousa Daffar
Documentary Feature Spotlight
The Dreams of Sparrows wings into consciousness as an urgent document from everyday Iraq. Filmmaker Daffar, a lifelong resident of Baghdad, shows us the Iraq he knows: the residents and the shopkeepers, the artists and the children, the refugees and the mentally damaged. With a team of several collaborators, he interviews the people of postwar Iraq, and as with any honest array of people, he comes away with a variety of insights often conflicting. Daffar captures a portrait of a citizenry that simultaneously holds what appear to be two contradictory (at least to Americans) attitudes: gratitude to America for ridding Iraq of the iron fist of Saddam Hussein, and anger toward the American occupation for its crass self-interest. It's fascinating stuff. Although I can't swear this movie will still be as compelling 10 years from now, today it plays like the report from Iraq you never get to see in the daily news.Paramount, 9:30pm