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. (Reviewed at SXSW Film Festival 2005.)
This article appears in October 13 • 2006.
