Filmstalker: Thieves of Baghdad, a lite Iraqi War film

Despite a couple of stories today about strong Iraqi War stories being brought to the screen and there being many more strong tales of human endurance and suffering untold, Thieves of Baghdad looks set to bring us a more positive side of the war.

From Variety through Coming Soon:

The book is a first-person account of [Matthew] Bogdanos' criminal investigation in the midst of war to recover priceless artifacts after gaining the trust and cooperation of Iraqi civilians. Bogdanos and his team recovered a large number of the pieces looted from the museum without a single casualty.

Well it is an interesting sounding story, but isn't this just like Three Kings? I don't mean the actual story I mean where the officers are leading the news crews to positive stories, or stories of how soldiers are doing good things, or the Iraqi soldiers doing bad. I'm not saying this is politically motivated in any way, but it does make me wonder who's making the films about the harsh realities of the war over there?

Add a comment

Track comments made to this post with co.mments

Your Name:

Your Email:

Your URL:

Remember my details?

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)

Site Navigation

Promotion

Comments

I read somewhere that the author has slandered somebody who works for the British Museum in this book and was not very pleased about it.

Posted by: Simone | June 12, 2006 6:22 PM

The BM curator's complaint can be found here. And Bogdanos' typically narcissistic response here.

Posted by: Will | June 22, 2006 3:12 PM

I'd like to add, your premonition about an 'Iraq lite' film could be correct. Bogdanos gives a misleading account of how the Baghdad National Museum of Antiquities was looted in March 2003. He has written an 'apologia' for the American invasion, casting himself as Saviour of Iraqi Heritage, an imperial Indiana.

Posted by: Will | June 23, 2006 11:28 AM

Will, that's where I read it from previously too.

Posted by: Simone | June 27, 2006 4:19 PM