Critic wrangle: "Operation Filmmaker."

2008-06-04 17:00:02

Liev Schreiber, prepping for his directorial debut "Everything is Illuminated" in 2004, was captivated by a segment of MTV's "True Life: I'm Living in Iraq" featuring Muthana Mohmed, a charismatic Iraqi film student shown searching for books on cinema in the Baghdad bazaars, his school and filmmaking dreams destroyed by the war. Schreiber invited Mohmed to come to Prague and serve as a PA on the film, and director Nina Davenport to document this act of liberal good will (and good publicity) that soon goes fascinatingly awry, the journey (and convenient metaphor for the U.S./Iraq relationship) becoming the documentary "Operation Filmmaker," which opens in New York today to general acclaim. "One of the grace notes of this smartly put together documentary, which fluidly weaves talking-head interviews with on-the-ground footage, is that it implicates everyone, including those Americans who thought that with their money and their good intentions they could perform...

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