Iraq war spreads to Hollywood
A number of films dealing with the conflict are now in the pipeline.

By Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writer

Jerash, Jordan — WAR'S mysterious allure drew U.S. Marine Cpl. Elliot Ruiz back to the parched plains where he nearly lost his life. Last time he was in the Middle East he wound up lying in a pool of his own blood on the pavement near Tikrit, clinging to life after an insurgent attack that badly damaged his leg.

This time, four years and countless hours of physical therapy later, he returns as Cpl. Ramirez, one of the lead actors in "Battle for Haditha," an upcoming feature movie exploring the complexities of the Iraq war even as the real conflict rages on.

"The character I play is kind of like me," says the 24-year-old actor, a Philadelphia native who now lives in Sherman Oaks. "He's a good Marine. But he watches his friend die and he just loses it. He kills a bunch of people."

With little fanfare, Hollywood has begun chronicling and critiquing the Iraq war even before it has ended.

"Haditha" is among several upcoming films about the conflict. The most high-profile and conventional is "No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah," set for a 2008 release and starring Harrison Ford as the general leading the 2004 charge into the western city controlled by insurgents. "Glory," which is still in pre-production, resembles the straightforward tales of heroism Hollywood turned out during World War II.

But almost all the other upcoming projects reflect the zeitgeist of a nation increasingly opposed to a conflict that has already cost tens of thousands of lives and shows no signs of abating.

One, director Kimberly Peirce's "Stop Loss," stars Ryan Phillippe as an Iraq veteran who refuses to return to the country when ordered to do so. A project in the works for 2009 is "Sweet Relief," starring Kirsten Dunst as Marla Ruzicka, the American aid worker killed in a suicide car-bomb blast near the Baghdad airport in 2005.

"Haditha," directed by Nick Broomfield, assembles a cast that includes former U.S. Marines and Iraqi refugees to seek clarity and revelation in the murky struggle between insurgents and Americans unfolding regularly on the streets and dirt roads of Iraq. In it, an angry but honorable Iraqi man is driven to revenge and joins an insurgency against an occupying army. Frightened villagers let him plant a bomb targeting a passing military convoy. An exemplary soldier, infuriated by the death of a cherished comrade, opens fire on the villagers, killing innocents.

"Each side has its point of view," Broomfield, a sedate, silver-haired Brit, said during a break in filming here recently. "They completely believe in their point of view. Both sides are very extreme and very destructive. Sympathetic and sensitive people get swept into this situation by forces that are bigger than them."

Unlike "The Deer Hunter," "Apocalypse Now" and "Platoon," which examined the moral ambiguities of the Vietnam War several years after it had concluded, Broomfield's film and the others aren't waiting for the last troops to come home. Cultural critics say these new movies show both the unpopularity of the Iraq war and the sophistication of filmmakers who understand the power of war movies.

Feature films play a crucial role in piercing through the consciousness of Americans emotionally desensitized to daily images of violence, said Michael Tucker, co-director of the Iraq war documentary "Gunner Palace." "To make the war real, it has to be fictionalized or worse, even sensationalized," he said.

Filmmaker Deborah Scranton, director of "The War Tapes," a documentary made from footage shot by National Guardsmen serving in Iraq, also worked to make the war feel more real to Americans. "The war isn't on TV every night," she said. "There are snippets that are on — you don't really get inside and have a context. With film, you try to place it in context."

"Haditha," though, is among the only projects in the pipeline that strives to paint as vivid a picture of Iraqi life as that of the Americans caught up in the war. Using amateur actors with real-life experiences in Iraq, the film evokes the spirit and themes of the 1966 film "The Battle of Algiers." And like that movie, which was banned from French and British movie screens until 1971, Broomfield's film has already proved controversial. Every Hollywood door he knocked at, he was told it was too soon for such a movie.

"Everyone's so worried," said Broomfield, best known for his documentaries about serial killer Aileen Wuornos and rocker Kurt Cobain. "They all wondered, 'Does the American public have an appetite for this?' "

While that remains to be seen, some observers detect more hunger for movies about this war than past conflicts.

"This is a culture which gets much of its vision of reality from images projected on movie screens, television screens and computer screens," said H. Bruce Franklin, a professor of American Studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey and the author of 19 books, including "Vietnam and Other American Fantasies," about the influence of movies on U.S. culture. But in this case, Franklin said, "There's a much higher level of consciousness about the Iraq war than there ever was in the Vietnam War until the very late stages."

The grit of reality

IN "Haditha," Broomfield, who got $3 million to fund the movie from Britain's Channel 4, conjures the sights and sounds of Iraq with each scene in this Jordanian countryside town. Heads turn throughout Jerash as gunfire and explosions erupt. Humvees manned by former U.S. troops-turned-aspiring actors donning military uniforms and wielding M-16s, roll through the ancient town.

The actors stay in an old schoolhouse converted into barracks with a rickety watchtower, much like the Forward Operating Bases now dotting the Iraqi countryside. They're filmed inside as they pal around, share meals and prepare for patrols. There's no script, just a general scene breakdown. The troops' profane, nonstop banter becomes movie fodder.

"This is surreal. This is like a reality-television program," said Eric Mehalacopoulos, 26, of Montreal, a Marine who served two tours in Iraq and plays the role of the no-nonsense Sgt. Ross. "Every time something stupid happens, they're there filming."

The Iraqi actors, meanwhile, live crammed inside small roadside houses rented from locals. They're asked to improvise when U.S. troops conduct surprise raids on their homes or shoot relatives. All have been touched by the tragedies in Iraq. Falah Flaya, the stage actor who plays a Sunni insurgent, continues to live in Baghdad.

"We have all suffered so much in Iraq," he said. "This is my chance to show the world what is happening to my country."

An Iraqi interpreter who worked for the Marines in Anbar province plays a character similar to that of his own life. "The Iraqi people don't trust me," says 26-year-old Ali Adill, who suffered burns over 45% of his body when a suicide bomber rammed into a checkpoint where he was stationed. "Sometimes the Americans don't trust me."

The film is based on the incident at Haditha, the Anbar province town where in 2005 U.S. Marines of Kilo Company allegedly massacred 24 civilians in a burst of rage. The first of the hearings in the case, for a Marine lawyer accused of not properly investigating the incident, began last week. Preliminary hearings for the others, including those Marines accused of doing the killings, are set for summer.

To research the film, to be distributed by London-based Dreamachine, a newly formed company made up of indie distributors HanWay Films and Celluloid Dreams, Broomfield said, his team met with Iraqi insurgents who claimed to have been active in Haditha, as well as the Marines of Kilo Company, some of whom face war crimes charges.

"The guys had never been out of the U.S. before, they didn't have any relationship with the Iraqis and didn't speak a word of Iraqi," Broomfield said of those Marines. "They became extremely paranoid. A lot of their friends were killed. They just went more and more crazy."

In "Haditha," an insurgent named Falah, a former Iraqi army officer angered and impoverished by the 2003 U.S. decision to disband his nation's military, obtains explosives from foreign fighters and plants a bomb in a village occupied by a man named Younis and his family. The roadside bomb destroys a passing U.S. Humvee, killing a young Marine, Pfc. Cuthbert (played by Jayse Willette, a former airman in real life), a fresh-faced recent arrival who had been taken under everyone's wing in the film. His buddies, including the respected Cpl. Ramirez, go mad with grief and rage, killing Younis' family and other civilians in an act of retribution.

The film could serve as a parable for all insurgencies, including the 1954-1962 Algerian uprising against the French that was the subject of "The Battle of Algiers," which inspired Broomfield.

Like that film's director, Gillo Pontecorvo, Broomfield strives to explore the complex political and military dynamics on the ground. Insurgent Falah, for example, has a conflicted relationship with the Muslim foreign fighters, taking the weapons they provide but also refusing to abide by their extremist strictures: Falah likes a drink now and then.

And certainly the insurgents are far from angelic, wielding terror as a tool to control Haditha. At the outset, they shoot dead a female English teacher, suspecting her of collaborating with the Americans. When they spot villagers fleeing out of fear of an oncoming clash, they don't fret. They're too scared to inform the Americans of the plot, one insurgent tells the other.

The fog of war

EVEN though Younis' family opposes violence, they ultimately succumb to the will of the insurgents out of fear but also anger over a recent U.S. raid of their home.

Miscommunications abound. A father watches his son die at the hands of U.S. troops and opens fire into the air in grief. U.S. troops, believing they're under attack, fire back, killing him.

Ruiz, who defied doctors' predictions and learned to walk without a cane after his injury, began taking on Hollywood roles during his recovery in Twentynine Palms. Reliving the experience of war in "Haditha" has revealed several truths about the Iraq experience, he said.

"Before I came here, I had this thing against Iraqis — I had everything against Iraq," said Ruiz. "Coming here and having to live with them, I just started talking to them. I never thought I could have had an Iraqi friend."

In the movie, Cpl. Ramirez bonds with Pfc. Cuthbert. "He's the new guy that reminds me of me when I was young," Ruiz says. "I take him under my shoulder. I watch out for him. I'm tough on him because I don't want him to make mistakes. Seeing him get killed makes me snap. I really cared about this kid."

Despite an abundance of captivating documentaries, the only serious feature films that have emerged from Hollywood about the war so far have focused on the war's aftermath rather than its day-to-day realities. "Home of the Brave," directed by Irwin Winkler and starring Samuel L. Jackson, chronicles the shattered lives of a group of National Guardsmen returning to Oregon after a yearlong stint in Iraq. Director James C. Strouse's upcoming "Grace Is Gone," which was featured at Sundance but has not yet been released, stars John Cusack as a father who must piece his life back together after the combat death of his wife in Iraq. Both films received lukewarm critical responses.

Broomfield says he's putting his faith in filmgoers. "I hope that the audience will like all the characters in the movie, so that it's quite confusing," he said. "It's not like one person is right and one person is wrong. Once you've declared war in any situation, this kind of thing is inevitable."

daragahi@latimes.com

Ellie