If learning about other cultures shows that we're all basically alike, Operation Filmmaker is a reminder that foreign countries have their own share of nitwits, too.
Comment
07/25/08
Operation Filmmaker (2008)
92 %
Reviews Counted: 26 Fresh: 24 Rotten:2 Average Rating: 7.2/10
Consensus:
Operation Filmmaker is a darkly funny, ironic tale of a cross-cultural exchange gone wrong.
Rated: Not Rated
Runtime: 1 hr 35 mins
Theatrical Release: Jun 4, 2008 Limited
Synopsis: In the wake of "Operation Iraqi Freedom," American actor Liev Schreiber had an idealistic notion: to rescue an Iraqi film student from the rubble of his country and bring him to the West to intern on a Hollywood movie (Everything Is Illuminated). It promised to be a heartwarming tale, a small... [More]
Genre: Education/General Interest
Starring: Alberto Bonilla, Liev Schreiber
Reviews
The antagonism between filmmaker and subject reminds us that reality is never a passive still life, but a volatile entity with its own ideas on how it is to be represented.
07/24/08
Davenport focuses deep on the Hollywood do-gooder mentality and her own complicity in treating Mohmed as a symbol of the war and not as a flawed person.
07/18/08
It's fearless filmmaking. And the surprising observations about cultural differences and insights into the movie production process make the whole thing worthwhile.
07/17/08
What might have been a vanity project emerges as a surprisingly complicated morality tale.
06/30/08
Everyone here comes out smelling bad -- that's why the film's so good.
06/20/08
An exit strategy in Iraq? This self-aware study shows how hard it'll be.
06/06/08
Veteran documentary filmmaker Nina Davenport parses an ill-conceived experiment in cross-cultural understanding that began with the best intentions.
06/06/08
The whole film could be seen a metaphor for America's misadventures in Iraq: Schreiber and company came in expecting flowers and sweets from a grateful native, and wound up in a quagmire.
06/06/08
You can bet Nina Davenport didn't set out to make a documentary as bracingly honest as the one she ended up with.
06/06/08
The film's parallels between Mohmed's travails and the Iraq war are forced, but overall this is a fascinating odyssey that never plays out in ways you would expect.
06/06/08
As the story of an exasperating, manipulative, lazy and entitled young man, it’s one for the books.
06/06/08
A blunt, bitterly ironic snapshot of cultural misinterpretation and personal hubris, Nina Davenport’s Operation Filmmaker slyly plumbs the motivations of indie Hollywood do-goodism for uncomfortable parallels to blinkered neocon nation-building.
06/05/08
Despite the dubious moral of the film and on-the-fly camera technique, it is interesting to watch the pathetic story unfold.
06/04/08
Engaging, provocative, and often discomforting, Operation Filmmaker reveals increasing tensions between Muthana and his would-be benefactors, including filmmaker Nina Davenport.
06/04/08
This essentially comic tale maps a contagion of mutual exploitation that seems to have burnished the careers of everyone involved.
06/04/08
Operation Filmmaker is an absorbing story about the best intentions gone terribly and comically awry.
06/04/08
Top Critic
Davenport's unnerving film becomes grindingly uncomfortable not long after its cheery beginnings
06/03/08
Related Forums
Won award at 2007 Chicago International Film Festival!
by: filmforlife 10/16/07
by: filmforlife 10/16/07
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