BATTLE FOR HADITHA/SPECIAL OPS

Fed up with all the bullshit about Iraq but not sure how to express your anger? Try this special screening of London's Nick Broomfield’s searing new feature film.

A mere £6.50 gets you the film, a chat, and the feeling that you have finally done something useful about the mess in Iraq at last.

Broomfield recently released Ghosts, his terrible tale of the twenty three Chinese cockle collectors who drowned in Morecombe Bay in 2004 at the whim of exploitive gangmasters.

Here he tackles a similarly troubling subject, America’s controversial behaviour – correction, controversial misbehaviour - during its occupation, focusing on a single harrowing incident, the military shooting of innocent Iraqis in the city of Haditha in November 2005.

The stark fact: this time twenty four men, women and children died, shot by four US Marines in retaliation for the death of a Marine killed by a roadside bomb.

Okay, these guys had lost a mate unfairly. They had a right to be angry.

But how is one to deal properly with such anger during war? Presumably not by the wholesale slaughter of all the nearest people without a shred of evidence that they were involved in the initial incident.

Broomfield raises disturbing questions, his visceral cinematography covering real Marine vets in action stirring emotions and confusing feelings until it is hard to say who is right or wrong.

This is more drama than documentary, eclipsing Bond or Bourne as action movies. This is the real deal, portraying real events all too convincingly.

The battle for Haditha will also play at the Clapham Picturehouse on February 1st before going on to play a several key cities on February 22nd and, hopefully, elsewhere by special arrangments.

Filed January 21, 2008