Reflections on "Operation Filmmaker"
After returning late to a Las Vegas hotel room the other night I caught the fascinating documentary "Operation Filmmaker" playing on cable. The film by Nina Davenport (an interview with whom TakePart reported on last summer) shows what ensues when a young, aspiring filmmaker from Iraq, Muthana Mohmed, is brought by an American production company to the set of "Everything is Illuminated" in the Czech Republic in 2003 after the onset of the Iraq War. The extraction of Mohmed out of a war zone and into the strange world of film production is the idea of the film's director, actor Liev Schreiber, who sees Mohmed in a brief segment on MTV talking about his dream of becoming a filmmaker after seeing his country torn apart by both Saddam Hussein and the war, and is moved to help the young man make his dreams a reality. However things don't exactly go to plan.
Perhaps Schreiber's biggest mistake in the ordeal is approaching MTV about making a documentary on Muthana's saga, a film that will end up showcasing almost everyone involved in the ordeal looking somewhere between bad and really bad. Once in the Czech Republic, Muthana doesn't turn out to be the Cinderella story that Schreiber and the production company had in mind. For starters, he doesn't like the duties assigned to him of being a Production Assistant on the set of the film (which in all fairness to Muthana, having PA'd myself, is perfectly normal). He's also not particularly motivated and doesn't have anything resembling the sense of direction possessed by the successful, driven people surrounding him on set like Schreiber or producer Peter Saraf. Like many young people in their early twenties, Muthana seems to be in the throes of the clumsy, mundane process of finding himself, which does not endear him to those who thought they were giving him the opportunity of a lifetime, yet don't see him taking advantage of it. Muthana's personal political views also seem jarring to the production company. He declares that he "loves George Bush" for freeing his country and describes "Everything is Illuminated", a film about a Jewish American writer traveling to Europe to walk in the footsteps of his family members in the holocaust as "a Jewish movie, defending the Jewish theory."
Meanwhile, things are getting progressively worse on the ground in Iraq. The insurgence is strengthening and Muthana's friends and family are warning him in letters and videos to never come back to Baghdad. Not only is the situation on the ground a nightmare, but Muthana's collaboration with an American company, and a "Jewish company" as Muthana terms it, have apparently put him at risk of assassination by extremists should he ever return to his neighborhood. This is very bad news given that principle photography is about to wrap on the movie and his Visa to the Czech Republic will soon run out. He appeals to Saraf, Schreiber and others on the set of the film to help him, but is in essence rebuffed after it becomes clear that he has no concrete plans for his future and, perhaps more importantly, no way of supporting himself going forward. The production company is done with him, but the documentary continues.
Muthana is finally able to find someone on the set of "Everything is Illuminated" who offers him a job on a horror film starring Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) to be shot in Prague a few months later. In the interim between the two productions, he lives rent free in something close to a squat with a group of Western expatriate young men. Now in a state of poverty, with no income coming in, things start to get tense between Muthana and Ms. Davenport, the documentarian. Sensing his value to the filmmakers, Muthana begins asking for money or help in securing a longer term visa or one to the United States and a dance of mutual exploitation builds steam on both sides of the camera, which only gets worse as Muthana begins work on the film and his Visa troubles deepen.
I won't reveal the ending to the film, but the frustrating experience of watching it is something I highly recommend to anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of not only the Iraq War but the whole concept of helping those less fortunate. The documentarians of "Operation Filmmaker" take pains in drawing parallels between Muthana's situation and the Iraq War as a whole, and indeed there are some. Schreiber & Co. try to help a foreigner but end up finding out there was a lot they didn't consider or even know about once reality sets in. However, unlike the US, thus far, they simply pull up the anchor and cast off once production ends on their film, using Muthana's lack of direction as a convenient exit strategy out of their failed experiment. Out of the all the characters presented to us in the film, Schreiber and the production company (ironically) are probably the least sympathetic. Hollywood sets are weird enough as is, filled with plenty of petty power issues, huge egos, self absorbed people etc. But once all these elements go beyond the harmless process of making a film and into serious, life or death political issues it really leaves a bad taste behind. The affair reminds me of the scene in the terrific episode of "The Wire", Middle Ground, where Police Commissioner Burrell chastises Mayor Royce for contemplating legalizing drugs in certain areas of West Baltimore saying "[You] brought in a bunch of liberal-ass do-gooders to actually, seriously consider this shit."
But what I really came away with from the film is an important lesson, one that's especially important on a liberal-ass, do-gooder social action website like TakePart: It's hard to do the right thing. Liev Scheiber wanted to do the right thing by helping out Muthana, but reality has a way of catching up, and what initially seemed like the "right thing" set off a whole new set of very serious problems of its own. Problems which Schreiber and his production company were incapable or unwilling to deal with. Helping someone can seem like the right thing, but when that charity becomes simply the dependence of that person on such kindness, rather than a way for them to become self sufficient, then how sustainable is it? Such questions are a vital consideration of any charitable activity that hopes to affect real change.
You can takepart in helping children in Afghanistan and Pakistan make a better, sustainable life for themselves by learning more about Central Asia Institute, a non-profit organization which creates community based education in remote parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
LINKS:
Independent Lens: Operation Filmmaker
- Categories: Government & Politics,Global Affairs,Business & Trade
Thanks for defending Muthana some more, Paul, but I think my characterization of his behavior which you cut off in the very next sentence I wrote "Like many young people in their early twenties, Muthana seems to be in the throes of the clumsy, mundane process of finding himself" seems to do an adequate job, and without the cultural stereotype you're pushing.
"he’s also not particularly motivated and doesn’t have anything resembling the sense of direction possessed by the successful, driven people surrounding him on set like Schreiber or producer Peter Saraf. Like many young people in their early twenties, Muthana seems to be in the throes of the clumsy, "
He came from Iraq where there was no motivation to successful or driven - have you watched the news or read anything about the country?
i saw that documentary last night. i feel that the liev and his production team might have been a little more keen on helping muthana if he was straight with them, had some sense of direction and wasn't so fake. personally, i feel that muthana has problems dealing with being independent. i realize he has had a difficult life and at the same time I don't fully realize what he has gone through in his life...and i understand that liev scheiber didn't really think this whole thing through, but what i got from the film was that muthana is always looking for a handout and is ungrateful for what he has been given. he had no sense of direction on his own and even when he was given the gag reel project he blew that off by going to a party. one can only think that if the opportunity was presented to oneself, one would have enough integrity, determination and sense to take advantage of the opportunity and would do something positive with it rather than mindlessly throw it in everybody's face. Lame.