Leaving Baghdad (2010) User Reviews

Slowly developing story about Sadam's ex-photographer, trying to cut loose from his past. His motives are left open until the end

[JvH48 · 7/10 · 10 December 2011]

I saw this film as part of the Ghent filmfestival 2011. It develops slowly, but not to the extent that I got bored. Gradually we got involved in the grand dilemma of the main character: As Sadam's personal photographer he got a prestiguous job, and could participate (as a bystander, but still) in how the upper class passes their time. On the minus side he had to observe (on a safe distance) punishments and murder, but recording such was an inherent part of his job. Overall he could live with it, demonstrated in an early scene wherein he speaks positively about Sadam.

He threw it all away for a reason, but why is kept from us until the very end (no spoilers here). The net result is that he cannot be sure anymore about his life. His wife succeeded in moving to London in time, blaming him for his sorry situation. There is also a son whose fate can easily be guessed, him being the underlying cause of all their troubles by joining a revolutionary group. But the exact fate of his son is also hidden from us until a late scene. Anyway, with no family and no future he wants to get away, preferrably to London. Being on the run and trying to leave the country makes up the main story line of this film.

Throughout the film we see relatively short but very memorable film fragments. These were apparently saved from his past as Sadam's photographer, where executions and torture were all in a days life. I remember one quote very vividly: "Faces in this footage will haunt us forever". Smuggled out of the country such explosive material would certainly expose the down sides of the regime in Baghdad. This can very well be the main reason that he was chased.

Gradually our pity with the main character grows on us viewers. He has no place to live, and wanders around for days and even weeks without any means of existence. We see him having hopeless phone calls, particularly those with his wife leading to nothing useful. He also meets several people presumably offering help, but who let him down eventually or even try to rob him. As a result we are inclined to distrust everyone who offers him "help".

All in all, this film is certainly memorable, but still leaves me wondering what I missed. We saw several moving scenes that got us involved in the loneliness of the main character, wandering in a strange and unwelcoming country. On the other hand, I challenge the necessity of the evenly dosed film fragments showing life around Sadam in flashbacks, which could be construed as being sensational for no reason. I scored a 4 (out of 5) for the audience award when leaving the theater.

An honest depiction of a vulnerable illegal immigrant, estranged from society, from his own country and from his own family.

[arowhena-nosnibor · 7/10 · 4 February 2013]

Koutaiba Al-Janabi's LEAVING BAGHDAD is an intimate, unpolished road movie in which we accompany a gentle cameraman, Sadik (Sadik Al- Attar) on his journey from Iraq to London. The story unfolds slowly and steadily as the troubled immigrant Sadik makes his escape, carrying with him fake passports, a few personal possessions, and a permanent burden of guilt and resentment.

Sadik's journey is underscored by traditional Iraqi maqam and naturalistic ambient noise: throbbing traffic and tolling bells mingle with Sadik's soft, emotional voice as he reads from his letters to his estranged son Samir, a rebel Communist whose political leanings led to Sadik's ejection from Saddam Hussein's entourage. Sadik, a loyal Ba'ath party member, used to be Saddam Hussein's personal cameraman, and struggles to reconcile his memories of a warm and generous leader with the atrocities he was employed to record. The deeply absorbing and empathetic documentary style gradually fractures as Sadik's flashbacks to (genuine) footage of torture and execution become more frequent and disturbing. Sadik's paranoia proves founded, and the trademarks of a classic thriller impose as we begin to cut away to a secret policeman who is pursuing him across Budapest.

LEAVING BAGHDAD was a cathartic work for Al-Janabi, who made the film in honour and memory of his own father who was killed in similar circumstances. The strength of the piece lies in its honest depiction of a vulnerable illegal immigrant, estranged from society, from his own country and from his own family.

LEAVING BAGHDAD won the Raindance Award at the British Independent Awards ceremony on 4th December 2011. The Independent Film Trust (IFT) and the Cambridge Film and Media Academy (CAMFA) are organising a free screening which will be followed by a discussion led by a panel including the film's director Koutaiba Al-Janabi and producer Hanna Heffner, together with IFT chairman Neil McCartney plus Glen Rangwala, Fellow in Social and Political Sciences at Trinity College, and Muthanna Al-Qadi, the Middle East Affairs Editor for the Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds.

A riveting film that gives insight into life under Saddam Hussein

[Sean1954 · 8/10 · 18 March 2013]

At one level this is a road film: we follow Sadiq, a photographer, as he escapes from an Iraq still ruled by Saddam Hussein (the film does not give dates, but appears to be set in the 1990s) trying to get to London, but finding himself stranded in Eastern Europe.

Sadiq, however, is not an ordinary Iraqi, but a supporter of the régime, a member of the Ba'ath Party, and at one time (before the film starts) very close to Saddam himself, personally photographing and filming the dictator. But his privileged existence ends when his son becomes an opponent of the régime and disappears. Sadiq has to go into exile, guilt-ridden and haunted by his collaboration with the dictatorship.

The film is mostly shot with a hand-held camera, and often very close up to Sadiq personally – the viewer is there with him drinking tea or lighting his endless cigarettes. As we see him making increasingly desperate calls asking for money so he can pay to be smuggled to Britain, the camera is almost jammed against his face as if the viewer is squeezed into the phone box with him. This lends a definite documentary feel to the film, and also helps to reduce the contrast with the passages of archive footage of Saddam's Iraq which are interwoven in the film: scenes of pro-Saddam demonstrations in Baghdad, and of Saddam himself, and then, more disturbingly, scenes of prisoners being beaten and executed while we wonder uneasily just how complicit Sadiq has been.

See below

[jcanakey · 9/10 · 17 March 2013]

Leaving Baghdad, directed by Koutaiba Al-Janadi, and seen by me at a viewing in Cambridge organised by the Independent Film Trust.

A short, (85minute), thoroughly absorbing film, it follows the fictitious but only too believable attempt of an Iraqi cameraman to escape the clutches of Saddam's murderous regime by making his way across Europe to London and safety.

Sadik is one of Saddam's official photographers with access to, and filming the most intimate and, what we learn later, darkest moments of the ruling Ba'athist party.

Somehow things have gone badly wrong for Sadik and the plot follows him as he escapes Iraq but eventually coming up against bureaucratic and financial brick walls in Budapest. Here he flounders as his money runs out, contacts in London fail to act and hope evaporates as the vindictive forces of the Iraqi security close in.

Sadik carries with him secrets, but what they are and why he is running and the identity and role of the other characters we encounter and surmise from one sided telephone calls are only slowly revealed. This gives the whole film a delicious undercurrent of tension that steadily grows as the narrative progresses.

The plot is, in places, minimalist, leaving the audience to fill in the gaps but this is a plus as it lends time and space for the scenes that help give this film an intimate touch. An intimacy that enhances the hammer blows when the horror Sadik carries in his head and on the film in his pocket are revealed, one (real, found footage) clip at a time.

Beautifully shot with much hand held camera work and natural lighting we find ourselves close up and personal with Sadik, the sounds of his immediate environment providing the soundtrack.

A personal project, financed by the director, he says he was driven to make this, his first full length film. No CGI, no known stars and no budget for general or straight to DVD release, I would suggest that anyone who cherishes class, craft and content in their movies should make a point of seeing this film and then bang on about it to their friends until they watch it too.

Excellent if harrowing.

[pm-waldmann · 9/10 · 14 March 2013]

An excellent film if harrowing. Made with honesty and for me, as the son of a refugee, it illustrated the extreme difficulties encountered by those fleeing their homeland for reasons of persecution. Poignant and topical for the times we are living through. The main character who played Saddams personal cameraman played the role to perfection. The use of the hand held camera gave the viewer the feeling of being right there and seen through the cameraman eyes. It was engaging throughout and particularly because of the use of actual footage shot within the regime gave an authenticity to the story. Amongst other emotions, the feeling of guilt is overwhelming as the fleeing cameraman real reason for having to escape are laid bare to the viewer.

Intense and powerful film draws you in

[lc-636-790778 · 9/10 · 18 March 2013]

I thoroughly enjoyed this slow-moving, intense film about Saddam Hussein's photographer. We see the world through his eyes, sensing his unease and guilt at his own past, as he tries to make his way to London. The film is interspersed with real-life footage of torture and abuse of men and women at the hands of Saddam's guards. This brings us even closer to the central character to whom we feel morally ambivalent. The mood and atmosphere are tense and strong throughout and the story really sucks you in. It is an excellent film that will appeal not only to all those interested in the issues affecting Iraq and the Middle East but to those who love a good human interest story.

A man, a woman, a son and the dictator

[jafar-13 · 10/10 · 5 December 2011]

Correlations with the road movie genre can be found in works of literature dating back to Gilgamesh, the Odyssey and indeed the holy books of the three monolithic religions. For travel, the change in circumstances and the unfamiliarity of the space are in a sense the catalysts for actions, reactions, thoughts and the unsettling of the equilibrium that many a screen writing guru has preached as being the essence of character arc.

By their nature, road movies are as much about the change in the terrain and space through which the story unfolds as they are about the transformation that characters undergo en route to their supposed destination.

Comfort, contentment and undisturbed bliss are, to oversimplify, toxic for character development. There must to be a need - a lack - that is at the heart of the character's existence.

In Koutaiba al-Janabi's Leaving Baghdad (UK/Iraq, 2010), we immediately encounter the lack of Sadik (played by Sadik al-Attar): at the most basic level, he lacks a home or a country that would take him in. He is an Iraqi refugee, seemingly, en route through eastern Europe to the UK.

The road element of the story is not so much about travelling to a place, as it is about the alien nature of the locale in which Sadik finds himself. The cold climate, and the freezing temperament of the land that is most felt by the uprooted character are thrown into relief as al-Janabi's camera follows the hero wandering aimlessly through an urban landscape to the architecture and history of which he is as oblivious as it is to his existence.

The transient, transit, and distracted prism through which Sadik views this foreign land acts as a factor that draws the viewer further into the one regular element on the screen - the character and his story.

Sadik, we learn, is most encumbered by his past and by the circumstances that propelled him into becoming an addition to the millions of Iraqis who have found themselves taking refuge in nations near and far from their homeland.

Through the narrating device of letters written to his son, Sadik seems to relate, primarily to himself, episodes in the father-son relationship that is thrown into extremes by the "patriarchal" figure of the dictator. For as with any dictatorship, there is an element of the father, the lover, the elder brother in which the propaganda of the regime moulds the relationship of the despot with the nation. The dictator seems to compete with the family and the dearest ones for attention.

Iraqis would recount the nature of the "partnership" they had with Saddam Hussein in terms that are a blend of adjectives and nouns that mirror the ubiquity and omnipresence with which their relationship with him was mediated.

This aspect of the relationship with Saddam Hussein is amplified in Leaving Baghdad, as rather than the interaction being filtered and, perhaps, conducted at the level of an idea, an image, a mental construct, it is one which is first hand and immediate. For Sadik is the former personal photographer and videographer of the president. In an echo of Orwell's 1984, he is part of the state apparatus that creates, writes and re-writes the nation's narrative according to the evolving position of the ruling party.

Indeed, we are allowed a glimpse of the very images that Sadik's real-life counterparts captured from Saddam's Iraq: a birthday party for the president's youngest daughter held with a relatively small group of family and friends. The images of the little girl kissing her father quickly give way to a more shaky, unstable, and terrifying scene.

Middle-aged men, bare-chested, holding thick rubber whips, stand in the middle of an empty, bare and well-lit room. A man walks into their midst. He is tall, twenty-something and well dressed. They seem to be chatting about something. We are unable to hear their exchange, but the whole scene fills us with dread.

When the thick rubber whips begin to lash the young man's crouching body, the brutality of the beatings is made even more disturbing by the business-like, routine, non-emotional features of the men as they rhythmically raise and crush their whips against the young man's flesh and bones.

The images, we begin to realise, are part of a collection of tapes that Sadik carries with him, like a scribe travelling the earth with fragments of a nation's history.

Looking through these images becomes part of the many incarnations of the search that is at the heart of this road movie - the search for a way to get to London; the search for a refuge from the cold; for someone to talk to; the search for an understanding between husband and wife, and for a closure to a narrative that involves Sadik, his wife, their son and the "Great Leader". All of these intentionally discordant elements arrive with the story at an ending that is as open and moving as the freeze frame in Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows (France, 1959).

Rather than the torture scenes that punctuate the narrative, or the episodes that depict Sadik's bewilderment and sense of loss in these foreign lands, what this viewer remembers most from Leaving Baghdad is those scenes of Sadik momentarily forgetting his refugee, wary and wandering self, to return to being a father showing total strangers a photograph of his son. Most movingly, he hands the black and white portrait to a woman with whom he shares a park bench. The fact that he doesn't speak her language, nor she his, makes the universal element of the scene most poignant: a father showing off his pride and joy.

A brave and touching debut feature from writer-director Koutaiba al-Janabi that's made this viewer impatient for al-Janabi's next project.

Rhythmical and expressive

[Adriana-timco · 8/10 · 20 May 2013]

Leaving Baghdad is touchingly melodic. At first its stasis makes one desire action and dialogue, yet any restlessness that is stirred in the viewer soon subsides as we become submerged in the lyricism of the narrative. Sadik is an ambivalent character. On one hand, one can't help but feel pity and sorrow at such a seemingly harmless, quiet man, who desperately attempts to escape with no money or contacts, who travels alone under the veil of paranoia. On the other hand as the pieces of the puzzle come together, the audience is also made privy to his cowardly, hypocritical side, and any sympathy for his death becomes clouded by his betrayal of his son. Yet, his suffering, his regrets and his rhapsodic narration make Leaving Baghdad a tender and soulful film.