Homeland (Iraq Year Zero) is the story of a country in turmoil, told through the experience of one family in particular : the director's family. But this is not a weighty history lesson. The major events takes place off-screen. We experience their repercussions on the life of the protagonists. Without avoiding the ceremonial events (birth, death, marriage) that usually punctuate this sort of family chronicle, the author-director focuses on the textures of daily existence. His project stands as a monumental act of testimony, teeming with evocative incident and Proustian detail. 'Homeland' means here both 'home' and 'native land'. It is a film about a home, a country and real life looked at through the eyes of real people. There's no heroism here, just the everyday life of normal people confronted to ordinary and extraordinary events. All human life is here: tragedy, comedy, death and fleeting moments of daily existence. Inevitably much of the story deals with the war, and it is fascinating to see how things evolve, coming up to a brutal, fatal term which leaves us heartbroken.
