Filming "Cops" in Baghdad.(Scan)(Gunner Palace)(Movie Review)

On February 28, 2004, two days before the climax of the Shiite religious festival of Ashura, I stood near Baghdad's Kadhimain mosque and watched children play atop an M-1 tank. Beside the Abrams, other kids were tugging an U.S. infantryman's uniform until a female Iraqi soldier shooed them away, wagging her finger at the G.I. in a "don't encourage them" gesture. Meanwhile, religious pilgrims streamed past, multicolored banners flapping in the breeze. It was a relaxed, even charming, tableau, one not at all unusual in those late winter days.

You'd hardly know such scenes existed during that time in Baghdad from watching the new documentary Gunner Palace, directed by Petra Epperlein and Mike Tucker. Taking place during late 2003 and early 2004, the movie follows Army soldiers from the 2-3 Field Artillery as they patrol Adhamiya, one of the most anti-American neighborhoods of Baghdad. Using rap music, electric guitar riffs, and grainy footage, Gunner Palace (named after one of Saddam's former mansions that served as the unit's billet) presents a jumpy, heat-and-adrenalin-soaked vision of Iraq's capital as a kind of desert Vietnam, filled with sudden violence and instant death.

While this depiction had its truth, the filmmakers never once note that during this same period (the time I was there) much of Baghdad was relatively calm, characterized by bustling stores, traffic-filled streets, and people friendly--or at least resigned--to the U.S. presence.

I don't mean to slight the dangers soldiers faced ...