'Occupation: Dreamland' Part II

A dramatic raid underscores a personal dilemma for the filmmakers.

Note: This is the third in a series of special documentary features on the Hot Zone. We'll be posting interviews with filmmakers along with excerpts from their films, which reflect some of the themes and issues covered on this site. Bookmark the Hot Zone and be sure to check back in the coming days for more.

In the second clip from 'Occupation: Dreamland,' filmmakers Ian Olds and Garrett Scott join members of the U.S. Army on a nighttime raid in an Iraqi home, as the soldiers try to detain an insurgent financier.

The Hot Zone's conversation with filmmaker Ian Olds continues below, as he describes his own conflict with making the film. While shooting 'Occupation: Dreamland' the filmmakers gave voice to U.S. soldiers, but Olds wonders if in the process they added humiliation to an already degrading situation for Iraqi civilians.

WARNING: This video clip contains strong language and mild violence.  

HOT ZONE: When you set this up through the Army, do the soldiers have any choice? Can they say no, we don't want a film crew following us?

IAN OLDS: That's interesting because in some ways, no.

There were some people in the squad who don't appear very much in the film because they were either very shy or hesitant to speak. So, they just ended up by their own choice not being involved in the film.

It was interesting. We were just assigned to a squad; we became friends but it wasn't like we picked them or they picked us, necessarily. That's how it unfolded.

One of our assumptions going in there was that these are going to be complex people with complex worlds inside and if you spend enough time with them, that will be revealed. I think that's an important thing.

I remember once I saw a very well-respected war correspondent on TV and someone asked him, "What are the soldiers thinking about?" He gave what I thought was a kind of glib response which was, "The soldiers don't really think about politics; all they think about is bringing themselves and their buddies back alive."

That is true, once they leave "the wire," as they say. When they go outside the base everything falls away. Every disagreement, every personal conflict or political consideration, those all disappear and it is a very professional and committed squad out there. But to assume when they are fighting a war involving an occupation that is incredibly confusing that when they got back inside they wouldn't have this incredibly varied response to it seems like not giving them enough credit.

HOT ZONE: You're following these soldiers on night raids and in some cases they are going into homes and interrogating the residents trying to get information. It's disturbing even to watch, how did it feel to be in those situations filming them?

OLDS: That was something that was definitely striking to me and I wasn't quite expecting it or ready for it.

As we were trying to set this up, we spent the first two weeks in

Iraq traveling around the country. This was before the kidnappings, so you could really travel freely and be invited into someone's home as a guest. Garrett and I experienced that hospitality. So, the next time you're in someone's house that is behind a wall of guns, you realize at that point that you aren't really an objective outsider.

It's not just that you're not an outsider, but you are really a participant because you're adding insult to injury in a way. You're humiliating people by filming them as they're being woken up in the middle of the night and as their husbands are taken away with bags over their heads.

I realized this the first time it happened. I went outside and sat down on a rock as the search was going on and I really wondered if it was worth it the way it made me feel.

I wondered, "Is this really worth doing?"

But the strange thing was, after I did it a few more times, I was responding in some ways the way the soldiers did. They talked about the first time they went into someone's house and put a bag on someone's head. It bothered them and made them think about their own families. But, the more they did it, the more accustomed they became, because it's their job.

You rationalize it in a way and it becomes a task you complete. For me, similarly, I realized that's how I started to approach it. I thought, "This is my job, to record this and then later in the editing to make meaning of it and to make a film that shows the reality of this specific occupation."

So you do all these justifications in the long run but it still doesn't actually change the experience when you are there, sticking a camera in the face of some woman who will never sign a release form.

To learn more about 'Occupation: Dreamland' or to buy a copy of the DVD, visit the film's Web site here.

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