The producer of the documentary, Iraq in Fragments, gave me the pre-release DVD with some hesitation. I felt that--after listening to my critique of Paradise Now in Seattle--he did not look forward to a blasting posting on it on my site. And I did not get to watch it until today. I was most impressed and pleased (and touched). What an effective and original project: and what a great narrative that tells the story of Iraq-under-occupation better than anything you can read or see. In fact, you watch this, and you feel the heavy claustrophobic burden of foreign occupation, and you feel the impact of the brutality of Saddam and Bush in Iraq. And the story is told with such sensitivity and with such care. I really believe that those (three) stories capture the reality--spare me the post-modernist suspiciouns of "reality" for a second here--of Iraq under occupation. I also particularly appreciated the class sensitivity: this is not the Iraq of the elites; the Iraq of those who speak English to Western reporters. And the translation of Arabic (I can't judge the Kurdish of the last segment) is most accurate and precise--a rarity in films. The attention to the lives of children was very touching and powerful: but my only critique is this: why are women invisible in such a movie? I know, the director could say that it would not have been easy for him to move freely among the women, but a female collaborator would have done that. (The producer just informed me that a forth segment featuring women will be added to the DVD version). I loved the first segment featuring a child worker in Baghdad. You identify with that story so much, and the child was allowed to tell his story with little interference from the director. The second segment shows us the republic of Muqtada As-Sadr: you get the impression that his Mahdi Army is more "effective" "resisting" (and beating) liquors' sellers than they are in resisting foreign occupation. The third segment about the Kurdish area is visually the most pleasing: spectacularly shot. Watch this documentary, NOW.