Epic Doc ‘Iraqi Odyssey’ Movingly Traces One Family’s Diaspora
Part history lesson, part family portrait, Samir’s nearly three-hour Iraqi Odyssey is one of the more breathless documentaries in recent memory. Pay attention: Dozens of the Iraq-born, Switzerland-raised director’s family members are mentioned, though only five are zeroed in on.
Spanning several generations, these relatives give firsthand accounts of the last fifty or so years of Iraq’s devastation: the fall of monarchist-overthrowing hero Abd al-Karim Qasim to the violent Baath regime; Saddam Hussein’s 35-year stranglehold; poverty-inducing, U.S.-imposed embargoes following the Gulf War; and, after a lightning-fast taste of freedom, rising crime and dissension during and after the U.S. occupation of the 2000s.
Source: www.villagevoice.com