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MORE THAN MOORE
Coloring Iraq
BY CHRIS WRIGHT

Patrick Dillon has seen his share of war zones. A 52-year-old filmmaker and Vietnam veteran, Dillon has spent time in Kosovo, Northern Ireland, and Somalia. More recently, he was one of the few Westerners in Baghdad during the onset of the US bombing there, an experience he is turning into a documentary called Raining Planes. Last year, Dillon smuggled 76 pictures out of Iraq, drawn in crayon and felt-tip pen, that depict the US bombing campaign from the perspective of Iraqi schoolchildren. These pictures, collected in an exhibition called "Shocked and Awed," will be at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center through July 30. Dillon spoke with the Phoenix from his home in New York.

Q: What’s this project about?

A: It’s very much in keeping with the idea that pictures are worth a thousand words, especially if those words are coming from the Pentagon. These kids live in a heavily bombed, very poor part of Baghdad. It’s called New Baghdad, and it’s anything but, because it’s fucked up. It took a lot of shots from the US Air Force. And at that time it was really crazy there, a lot of looting, the Fedayeen were just beginning their uprising. For the kids, I think it was more therapy than anything else.

Q: Do you worry about what will happen to these kids as they grow up?

A: Of course. It’s a guarantee that whatever happens to the generation being born now will dictate the conditions of the future.

Q: Did you get the sense that they were beyond hope?

A: Absolutely not. Children are extremely plastic. They do get traumatized and terrorized, but if you love them and encourage them, they heal. If not, then you’re going to have an army of monsters. I’m not a pessimist by any means, but I am aware that this business of war is just getting started.

Q: Most people would consider serving in Vietnam to be enough carnage for one lifetime. Why do you keep going to these places?

A: It’s my devotion to cinema, the idea that someone has to turn a lens on these things in a way that counters the party line. And I like action.

Q: You have a tattoo of cross hairs on the back of your neck. What does that symbolize?

A: That we’re all targets.

Q: Is it fair to say that you’re not admired by the US soldiers in Iraq?

A: I was put in Abu Ghraib by the Americans because I went to Fallujah to find out about these massacres that had occurred. I was interrogated by military-intelligence teams and some spooks, and the price of my release was the film in my camera.

Q: That sounds scary.

A: I was more outraged, given that the Mukhabarat [Iraqi intelligence service] had put me there earlier.

Q: That sounds scarier.

A: The Iraqi secret police are a piece of work. They are scary dudes. They are ignorant and very short-sighted people doing a job, and at that point the job was to get as much money into their pockets and get the fuck out of Baghdad, because the Marines were on the way.

Q: But still you stayed in Iraq.

A: I wanted to leave, but I wasn’t able to because I couldn’t find anybody crazy enough to drive the highway. At that point, all bets were off as far as security. There were a lot of cowboys, a lot of people with guns, and the Mukhabarat: "You are a spy! If we catch you here we will shoot you on sight!" The Americans were dropping shit everywhere. I just assumed that at some point I would buy it.

Q: Did that make you re-examine your choices?

A: No. Listen, everyone gets out of bed for different reasons, and I have mine. I believe in this film. I have 60 hours of evidence and I want that to be out there.

Q: What will your film demonstrate?

A: That the people in power are completely insane.

Q: Will it go further than Michael Moore?

A: Oh, yeah. He’s not a threat, man. But I don’t want to get into Michael Moore. My film is about Iraqis and what they have suffered and for what reasons.

Q: Weren’t you at least a little bit excited to find yourself in the middle of all this?

A: You’ll have to ask my shrink. No, I was thrilled to be in Baghdad. My exuberance, my vigor, was because the camera was rolling. The fact that I had managed to get there and stay there and now they were dropping bombs on us was exciting, of course, because that’s what I went there for, to make this movie.

Q: When will the film come out?

A: As soon as I can rob the last 15 grand I need to finish it. I take tokens.


Issue Date: July 9 - 15, 2004
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