Insurgents in Iraq flirt with action film aesthetics

[saigon68]

Insurgents in Iraq flirt with action film aesthetics

By Anne-Beatrice Clasmann Oct 23, 2006

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/article_1213696.php/Insurgents_in_Iraq_flirt_with_action_film_aesthetics




Cairo - 'They carry video cameras and film their atrocities' US President George W Bush commented about Iraqi insurgents in his weekly radio address to the American people on Saturday.


One video shows an American soldier standing in the midst of a group of Iraqi children next to a US military vehicle. Suddenly, he is hit by a bullet and falls to the ground. In another scene, a group of American soldiers enters a shop. One of them crumples after being fatally hit.

The video then cuts to a sniper from the Islamic Army in Iraq laying out his weapon on a white sheet and placing the silencer and ammunition next to it, before ticking off his latest victims on a list written on the wall. His face remains hidden.

The film presents the man who calls himself 'the Baghdad sniper' as an action figure with a licence to kill. The shooter himself seems more than willing to perform the part of a courageous avenger.