My Country, My Country.

"[Laura] Poitras, an experienced progressive doc-maker, has made the definitive nonfiction film about the occupation, and as a counterpoint against acres of corporate-spun non-news, it is indispensable," declares Michael Atkinson in the Voice.

Salon's Andrew O'Hehir agrees that it's "probably the best documentary so far to depict the Iraqi side of the current conflict."

Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times: "My Country, My Country may appear to be strictly observational, but its images and structure inevitably question the legitimacy of democracy at gunpoint, leaving us with the feeling that this particular mission is far from accomplished."

Updated through 8/12.

More from Cinematical's Ryan Stewart and Eric Kohn in the New York Press.

indieWIRE has sent its questions to Poitras; and an online listening tip: Poitras was a recent guest on the Leonard Lopate Show.

Somewhat related: In the NYT Book Review, Noah Feldman reviews Fouad Ajami's The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs and the Iraqis in Iraq (first chapter) and Peter W Galbraith's The End of Iraq: How American Imcompetence Created a War Without End (first chapter).

Update, 8/12: "Intimate, nuanced, complex and devastating," writes the Nation's Stuart Klawans. "Witness the film's continual sense of discovery, its endless unfolding of emotional complications and Poitras's near-miraculous conjuring of a whole story out of six months' chaos. What you see is a remarkable filmmaking achievement - and an indispensable record of one man's war."

Posted by dwhudson at August 10, 2006 2:44 PM