In the Sands of Babylon (Mohamed Al Daradji, 2013): UK, United Arab Emirates, Netherlands, Iraq

Reviewed by Raven Arce. Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival 2015.

In the Sands of Babylon (Mohamed Al Daradji,2013) is about a story and man that seems to have been lost to time, Ibrahim (Samar Qahtan) an Iraqi soldier who has escaped from Kuwait as the Iraqi Army retreats. All set during the 1991 Gulf War this story entails how he was captured by a band of Guards and thrown into one of Saddam’s famous prisons after they brand him a traitor. We are also walked though this story side by side in 2013 with three people, a photographer with a secret, a farmer who hides his scars to hide his story, and a ex prisoner. Walking in both the present and past, fiction and reality, the director is able to piece together accounts to find out what might have happened to Ibrahim.

We start in the southern desert, a chaotic and desolate no-man’s land between Saddam’s Regime and American Cross Fire. As him and another, wounded, solider cross the desert Ibrahim must leave his friend to try and save him. An action that may have save his friend more than he knows. Taken as a prisoner to one of Saddam’s famous, infamous, prisons he soon realizes that no matter how much he screams and fights, all that’s going to earn them is a one way ticket to their death.

Alternatively we learn facts about the gulf war that I am sure many of us to don’t want to hear or know. Tales of horror about the time they lived in from two of our guides. Learn about torture they underwent both physical and mental and learn how  it ties into Ibriham’s time in prison.

The way this movie was shot was really unique, alternating between reality and fantasy, present and past. It was hard to get an accurate read on it. The horrors are apparent and you feel those, but between this and the harsh questions and lack of privacy he gives the guides makes me mildly believe that all of it is fiction. However. The Ending shot of the funeral parade combine with the slides detailing the amount of deaths that occurred banish thoughts thoughts for the most part.

All together this movie was very informative and accurately showed the horrors of what happened during the gulf war by not just leaving it in the past and bringing it into the present to where we can see. By combining the two worlds it makes and leaves a powerful impact on all the viewers.