Iraq war film stuns Venice festival

[Middle finga]

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1391272007


BRIAN De Palma, the director of Hollywood hits such as Mission: Impossible and Scarface, stunned the Venice Film Festival yesterday with a harrowing film about the Iraq war.

Redacted, billed as a "fictional story inspired by true events", follows United States soldiers in Iraq who rape a teenage girl and slaughter her family. It is based on an incident in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, in which soldiers raped a 14-year-old girl before setting her body alight and shooting dead her parents and five-year-old sister.

In one graphic scene shot in the style of an al-Qaeda internet video, a US soldier is beheaded. The film ends with a montage of real-life photographs of Iraqi war victims, including maimed and dead women and children.

The film's title refers to the process of editing out material for legal or other reasons and De Palma claimed censorship was stopping the US public from seeing the reality of the war.

He said: "Unlike Vietnam, when we saw the destruction and sorrow of the people we were maiming and killing, we see none of that in this war. You can find it if you look for it, but it's not in the mainstream media."

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It's going to be hard to convince future generations that our guys were the heroes in this Iraq War.

MF

[3waygeek]

1. Marc Cuban's HDNet Films plans to release

the film in November -- maybe a simultaneous TV/theater/DVD release -- they've done it before. That way the film would get maximum exposure even if theaters refuse to carry it.

Cuban's HDNet runs a lot of commercials for the film -- it looks like it's going to be good. If it's broadcast on the HDNet movie channel, I'll be watching.

[Middle finga]

2. What is Mark Cuban's film about?

[Middle finga]

3. I'm sorry I misread your comment, I thought you said he was producing

his own film

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

4. "Redacted" is a brilliant title.

DePalma's work is usually very compelling, hard to watch and impossible to turn away.

MKJ

[agincourt]

5. Casulties of War,

was one of the most hard hitting films I've ever seen. I remember it coming out in the '80s when they were releasing the corporate-propaganda Rambo fluff at the same time.