Gunner Palace

Gunner Palace may well prove to be the emblematic film of the Iraq war, offering a yet-to-be rivaled level of intimacy with the inner lives of those who hate war more than anyone--the soldiers who have to fight it. A war documentary seemingly without an agenda, at least in political terms, it appears to neither support left-wing nor right-wing interpretations of the Iraq war (or perhaps it supports both). Director Michael Tucker provides a ground-level view of the conflict by closely following members of the 2/3 Field Artillery. He lived with these soldiers, documented their daily lives in a bombed-out former pleasure palace once belonging to Uday Hussein, accompanied them on raids, and recorded their brutally honest observations on film. We learn that mortar attacks typically fail to rattle the troops, but that paper bags or packages in the streets that may contain Improvised Explosive Devices evoke gut-churning anxiety. We see Iraqi civilians whose homes are raided, cowering with fear as these members of the occupation search for contraband weapons. We meet soldiers who express profound doubts about the morality of their mission, soldiers who earnestly hope they?re helping the people of Iraq, soldiers who roll on the ground with laughter at the ineffective armor they've been provided for their Humvees. Most of these men (and occasionally women) hail from small towns and vacillate between exaltation for the adventure they're experiencing on the world stage and deep confusion and disillusionment at how it's proceeding. At one point in the documentary, Tucker returns to his home in the states; some footage of him making breakfast in his kitchen is shocking when one considers that only twelve hours previous he was in a war zone. Gunner Palace recapitulates this dissonant sensation by virtue of its candor and proximity to the conflict. In the 1970s the major broadcast media brought Vietnam into our living rooms via the nightly news. Gunner Palace, practically by itself, provides the same service today. --Ryan Boudinot