We’ve been looking at a DVD that Michael “Horns and Haloes” Galinsky sent our way called Operation: Dreamland, a documentary about the day to day lives of foot soldiers in Falluja, Iraq before the clampdown/invasion of the city. The co-directors, Garrett Scott and Ian Olds, spent 6 weeks with a small group of soldiers letting us get to know them fairly deeply in only 78 minutes. Falluja is realtively calm at this point despite becoming known as a haven for the various enemies. The film is not meant to be political, but I’m sure that every viewer will find politics somewhere in the film. I dropped the film off for Michael’s parents to see.
Next, Tucker and I watched the Matrix and Matrix: Reloaded. Between viewings, Michael’s mother, Maeda, stopped me as I was mowing. She asked about the violence in the Dreamland documentary. How could I answer that question having just been through hours of Matrix? Her friends in the car with her were concerned that there might be unsettling scenes, say a beheading (nope), say explosions (yes but compared to the Matrix not so upsetting), but how to say that the real violence in Iraq paled beside the Keanu Reeves cord-dancing pomposity?