THE POPCORN REEL FILM REVIEW/"Body Of War"
Tomas Young, paralyzed from his nipples down after
being stationed in Iraq for five days, seen here visiting what used to be the
World Trade Center, in "Body Of War"; the vote on the joint resolution of the
House and Senate which sent Mr. Young, who had volunteered to go to Afghanistan,
into Iraq. "Body Of War" is directed by Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue and
opened in numerous U.S. cities today, including San Francisco and Berkeley.
(Photo of Mr. Young: Ellen Spiro/Mobilus Media; Capitol Hill Dome photo: Mobilus
Media)
The U.S. Senate's Universal Soldier in Iraq:
This Is Their Weapon But Isn't Their Young -- He Is For Fighting But His Body's
Now Done
By
Omar P.L. Moore/April
18, 2008
His body might be done, but there's no quit in the heart, soul, spirit and passion of Tomas Young.
As if presiding over a prolonged doomsday hall
of shame, the distinctive baritone-like voice of Capitol Hill reading clerk Paul
Hays is heard airily intoning the names of each of the U.S. senators who voted
to send U.S. soldiers into harm's way in Iraq on the premise that Sadaam Hussein
possessed weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Hays' voice seems ominous as we see
that from the very start of "Body of War", Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue's
documentary, the number counter grows, leading to a total of 77 out of 100 U.S.
senators voting "aye" to send Tomas Young and hundreds of thousands of
other young American men and women into Iraq into an invasion based upon false
pretenses.
This continuous juxtaposition of Mr. Young, whose body was destroyed,
paralyzed by a bullet fired from an AK-47 when it shattered his spine after
entering just below his left collarbone, with that of the politicians who sent
him to Iraq with their vote is the most powerful and emblematic image contrast
in any American documentary made about Iraq. In the most clear-cut
straightforward way, "Body Of War" effectively makes the most direct and
immediate connection between those at the seat of power's corridors in
Washington, D.C. and the working class ordinaires like Mr. Young and his ilk who
were either severely injured or killed in Iraq. (The counter for the number of
dead U.S. soldiers in the now-five-year conflict in Iraq continues to rise, past
4,037 as of the date of this review -- not to mention the over 30,000 injured
soldiers and the over 1.2 million Iraq civilians killed, which this stirring and heartwrenching documentary film makes reference to in its closing credits.)
Tomas Young, a Kansas City native, just 24 at the time, had been in Iraq
for five days when a bullet would change the way he lived his life forever. He
had volunteered to serve in the U.S. military in Afghanistan after hearing
president George W. Bush shout into a megaphone atop the rubble of the World
Trade Center in New York City in September 2001. Instead, he learns that
he will be sent to Iraq. In brave and quietly somber footage early on, a
wheelchair-situated Mr. Young is seen tending to himself, going through an
arduous routine that taxes his already battered and assaulted body. He is prone
to spontaneous bouts of light-headedness. His blood pressure rockets up to as
high as 200 over 80, and then to as low as 60 over 30, in a matter of minutes or
seconds. The film however, is hardly about the business of indulging in the
physical obstacles that young Tomas faces, although it unsparingly shows what
most documentaries, including "Fahrenheit 9/11" haven't: the peril of the
young General Issue who comes home from war, but never leaves the battlefield
and consternation of pain behind.
Still, Mr. Young is a remarkable lad, strong in spirit and abundant in humor and
self-deprecation, which while funny is sometimes disturbing to witness. Mr.
Young like many war veterans (including those in the recent Winter Soldier Part
Two hearings in Silver Spring, Maryland) becomes an activist and anti-war hero
and a resolute leader, spiriting from here to there across America to speak out
about the horrors of war and get audiences who listen to him to keep the
pressure on their political leaders, leaders whom in a relentless barrage of
edits (done superbly by the film's editor Bernadine Colish) from the C-SPAN
cable live television testimony (available to millions of Americans who had
access to it) are shown as mouthpieces for the talking points of the White House
while articulating their reasons for voting yes to invading Iraq. Each "aye" a
hammer surely thumping the last nail into the coffin holding the U.S.
Constitution.
"Body Of War" also displays one hideous and disturbing moment of the 2005 White
House Correspondents Dinner, when the president spoofs a search for weapons of
mass destruction. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere,"
mocks Mr. Bush, in what can only be viewed to many as a horrifically insensitive
parody -- just a few months before the same Bush Administration (through David Kay)
in the same year belatedly concluded that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. What some
audiences will find especially aggravating and alarming is the reaction of
laughter by notorious politicians and media personalities to the president's hijinks. This is as clear a signal about the appalling disregard that the
war-voting
senators have for Mr. Young and the countless thousands who are in his position,
or who were not fortunate enough to remain alive -- and it also reveals a
callous
disregard for the more than one million Iraqi civilians who have been killed.
In one of the film's quietest and strongest moments, the camera pulls back from
the Correspondents' Dinner and shows Mr. Young, alone, sitting in his wheelchair
watching what has been taking place.
"Body Of War" is overwhelmingly moving and
tells a second story: that of the mothers who bear so much pain, anguish and
conflict. They are, at least here, the ones (more so than the fathers, who
aren't focused on at all in Ms. Spiro and Mr. Donahue's documentary) who bear
the brunt of the emotional burden and horrors. Cathy Smith, Tomas's mother,
mentions at one point that when things get tough for her son who may suffer from
post-traumatic stress disorder from time to time, that "deep down he knows that
I will always be here for him and won't leave him, no matter what." The film
effectively captures the gamut of Ms. Young's inner turmoil, especially since
her younger son Nathan, having seen what has happened to his older brother, is
heading to Iraq himself. She obviously doesn't want him to go, and there is a
tense, if not cold detachment shown by Nathan, a Republican, when he is getting
ready to leave his mother and head eight and a half thousand miles east.
Ms. Spiro, who also operates the cameras for the film, was able to sneak her
camera into places that she surely wouldn't have been able to if not incognito,
making some of the filmed scenes and locations even more remarkable. Eddie
Vedder's plaintive voice penetrates this film as he sings two songs specially
for the documentary, including the urgent "No More".
The third and final story interwoven into "Body Of War" is of those U.S.
senators (and House of Representative members) who stood by the courage of their
convictions in October 2002 and voted "no" to a joint resolution for war in
Iraq, and their symmetrical convergence with Tomas Young. By the closing stages
of the film, the powerful imagery that had been edited together at the start
with the 70-plus yes-to-war-voting senators and a disabled Mr. Young, is now
replaced by a hagiographic salute to the 23 U.S. senators who resisted the
ferocious surge of their colleagues into war, with an image of the interior of
the Capitol building and the perception of a friendlier-sounding voice of Mr.
Hays, as a ticker counts 23 times.
Democratic senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, long ago disowning his
membership as a Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan decades ago, has been in the
U.S. senate for 48 years and cast more than 17,000 votes, and he was one of whom
he dubs "the immortal 23" -- those senators who refused to rush into war -- and
not a certain sports legend named Michael Jordan. Senator Byrd, now in his
mid-nineties, says in the film that the vote of no that he cast on the joint
resolution in October 2002 on whether to invade Iraq was the "most important
vote I've ever cast". This portion of "Body Of War" both celebrates and
cherishes an unabashed patriotism (a part of the film which some may feel
is self-righteous), but it is a salute to standing on principle in the most
trying of times -- the one moment when the underdogs in a war end up winning --
even if it has been all-too-costly. This aspect of the film, of which has been
an undercurrent running throughout this stellar and devastating chronicle of
young bodies being used as vessels on a blood-stained political chessboard of
the wealthy and powerful, is also a cautionary tale about the supposed orderly
function of branches of the U.S. government, with the people of America
as the ultimate final check on the branches of government -- especially on the
legislature and the executive branches.
The understated message that flies just below the surface but is said by both
Senator Byrd and Mr. Young is that America's citizens must forcefully challenge
the very people (like Democratic U.S. senators John Kerry, Hillary Clinton
and Dianne Feinstein and numerous Republicans, among others) who voted for a war
which only 1% of the U.S. population has sacrificed in. James Madison's famous
words (which you should read and absorb in a darkened theater rather than here)
are quoted at the start of "Body Of War" and is a thread in conjunction with an
excerpted series of impassioned speeches throughout by Senator Byrd on the
senate floor. These quoted words and the West Virginia senator's urgency
are as shrewd a device and an extension of the truism that Mr. Byrd, in spite of
his past contradictions, becomes as much a founding father in his own right as
Mr. Madison ever was, especially in a post-9/11 America.
"Body Of War" is an imperative cinema experience, one which should be viewed by
all of those who have the eyes to see what the domestic mainstream press has
deliberately shunned its electronic eyes from: the physical and emotional costs
of war on those who fight it and come home. Thus far, it is the very best
film to see the light of day this year.
"Body Of War" is not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America
but contains graphic insertions of catheters into male genitalia, and bodily
fluids. It is not pretty but then again, nor is war -- which we need to
see to comprehend just what our fellow countrymen and women are going through.
The film's duration is one hour and 27 minutes. The film is now playing in
Boston, New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, Berkeley and will open in
numerous other cities across the U.S. over the next few weeks.
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