A glimpse into the lives of extraordinary ordinary Iraqis
Daniel Nelson
During the 1991 Gulf War Maysoon Pachachi was in London and recalls that “watching the news, I never saw one ordinary Iraqi person on screen. They were absent.”
Now her film Our River Our Sky is showing in London - and it’s about ordinary Iraqis living through the period of US occupation at the time of Saddam Hussein’s death.
It follows a group of Baghdadis trying to work, love, look after their families amidst an artificial, disintegrating peace, explosions, gunshots, heightened religious divisions, corruption, diminishing resources, and rubble.
There’s a writer with writer’s block, desperately trying to shield her daughter from the encroaching mayhem; a Christian former actress; a former prisoner-of-war in Iran and his pregnant wife who can't forget her children from a past marriage plus her mother whose son was 'disappeared' by the regime; a manic-depressive on the look-out for 'happy pills'; a college student who busies herself with music and fashion; a teenager drawn into a sectarian gang as his father hits the bottle; and the writer’s brother who must choose between accepting bribes to stay in his job or leave the country.
These are flesh-and-blood characters you’d like to know and talk to. You live with them through their troubles. They live in a city they loved but now scarcely recognise. Even the ones who are forced to consider leaving - exchanging the dangers of everyday life for the risks of refugee flight - are heartbroken.
Written and directed by women of Iraqi origin, it’s a slice of life rarely seen by British audiences. We see love and fear, joy and distress, friendship and impatience, and the camera stops rolling with lives unresolved, decisions yet to be made, conditions still changing.
What we are left with is a sense of humanity, in all its strengths and weaknesses. Even the people smuggler quietly points out, “It doesn’t all go in our pockets, you know. There’s food, accommodation, bribes at the border - we don’t take all of it.” After all, his job exists only because of failures by governments.
The film comes with a commendation by leading British director Mike Leigh (“... a terrific film! I’m deeply impressed”), who was a lecturer when Pachachi was a student at the London Film School. Leigh is known for his "emotional, subjective, intuitive, instinctive, vulnerable films” on contemporary life, qualities that Pachachi, who lives in London, also has in abundance.
* Winner of the 2022 British Independent Film Award for Best Ensemble Performance.