Perhaps with the mainstream audience’s addiction to reality television and “found footage” movies such as “Cloverfield” and “Diary of the Dead,” Nick Broomfield’s recent ventures into features will finally give him the credit he richly deserves for a genre that he has been a giant in for over two decades.

His ground breaking and often controversial documentaries have been the template for an entire generation of reality drama, most keenly felt in Paul Greengrass’ work on “United 93.” Now Broomfield seems to have once again found a subject that will divide the public and tap into the collective zeitgeist of the moment.

His “Battle for Haditha” is the true story of a small engagement between a Marine patrol and two local men who have been paid 1000 dollars by al Qaeda to detonate an IED. The chaos that ensues after the explosion which kills a Marine Captain quickly develops into a massacre of the local population by the surviving Marines. In all 24 people died, but this is no crucifixion of the U.S. forces or a condemnation of the insurgents, but rather an even-sided account of one terrible day.

In fact, “Battle for Haditha” is an internal struggle of conscience for all concerned; Marines, civilians, and insurgents alike.

Broomfield develops a Truman Capote “true fiction” account of life in Iraq. His documentary style is present and correct but he is also adept at opening this canvas wider through his excellent use of music; most notably the thrash metal soundtrack which constantly accompanies the exhausted and bored Marines through their daily lives.

The young Marines are played by ex-servicemen which further ads to the personal tragedy of the film. Corporal Ramirez, our main focus, is devastating in an emotional scene where he breaks down shortly before the massacre takes place. It is all the more poignant because we know Elliot Ruiz has experienced this battle fatigue for real, he knows Ramirez because Ramirez is him and every other Marine.

Broomfield also picks up on the class and background of the young soldiers. Ramirez is from Philadelphia, “the murder capital of America” and has traded that place for “the murder capital of the world” as one Marine puts it. It is as if America has a ready trained multitude of urban warriors to send into 21st century war zones, and perhaps this is their government’s grand design: not to develop those inner-city projects so men will enlist and kill foreigners, rather than each other. “Battle” could well be a companion piece in this sense to the documentary “Rampage,” which featured a young soldier from Miami returning from Iraq to his equally violent American city.

However Broomfield’s film also dwells upon the local population. The bomb planters are small businessmen, one sells DVD porn to the very soldiers he will attack, and the other drinks alcohol and has to hide this fact from al Qaeda who pay them to attack the Americans. Perhaps the greatest irony is that al Qaeda pay them in dollars, thus funding a capitalist society they wish to eradicate, and using the very symbol they so despise.

The most gut-wrenching scene is where the initiators of the violence stand with an al Qaeda member watching the carnage unfold beneath them. They realise too late what they have unleashed on their own people, only for the al Qaeda representative to calmly explain how it will be used for propaganda. Later back with his family, one of the insurgents collapses in grief, the audience in no doubt of the hideous burden he has brought upon himself.

The massacre of the civilians is a stunning piece of film making. Their homes are attacked with military precision and it is that professionalism of arms which leaves the audience spellbound when seeing its effect on defenceless women and children. Once the Marine attack is finished we are lost for words but also at a loss for whom to blame.

The Marines are the obvious choice, bred on a diet of al Qaeda propaganda DVDs and pounding music, but then again is their leadership to blame for not allowing Ramirez to see a doctor when he was clearly suffering from post traumatic stress disorder? The insurgents planted the bomb but they were at the mercy of al Qaeda. Or were the civilians to blame as they did not reveal the IED to the authorities even though they saw it being planted?

“Battle for Haditha” is the first remarkable film about the unique situation in Iraq and it will take some beating, such is its emotional depth, and scope of its intelligence.

Further reading: “Battle for Haditha” premieres in Dubai.

Tags: film