Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

It is easy to turn an exploration of the banalityof evil into an exercise in the evil of banality.Rory Kennedy’s documentary details thecircumstances surrounding the assaults onprisoners in the Abu Ghraib-jail in Iraq in 2004.Early on, one of the US military policemenstationed at the infamous prison describes theatmosphere as “Apocalypse Now” meets “TheShining”. Movie references have haunted manyrecent documentaries setting out to explore thescabby scar that “the war on terror” has left onthe moral face of America. In the process, thebroadcasted images have lost some immediacy,leaving a strange apathy in their wake. Thegreat virtue of Kennedy’s film is simplicity ofform. Mixing news footage, familiar photos ofnaked Iraqi prisoners tortured by Americansoldiers, and candid interviews with guards and prisoners, Kennedy employs a plurality ofvoices to probe the psychology of the guardsand the policy decisions that eroded the UScompliancy with the Geneva Conventions. Howcould seemingly normal individuals perpetratesuch atrocities? In the end we are asked toacknowledge that human nature provides nosafe guard against evil.

Premiere Status
Nordic Premiere: Producer
Liz Garbus, Rory Kennedy, Jack Youngelson: Cinematography
Tom Hurwitz: Music
Miriam Cutler: Spoken language
English