Filming in Baghdad

It’s trick or treat time in Baghdad gentle reader and the spooks, goblins, devils, headless horsemen and movie makers are hard at it.

“War is a necessary evil and stuff happens,” said a defensive paranoid schizophrenic inmate putting a spin on the latest movie-in-development snafu.

“Yes,” he said as media cameras recorded his nuance and twitching eye, “this is a big budget film and we know there will be post production problems. Our producers have gone out of their way to hire the best most highly qualified directors in the business. We’ve offered secret contracts to companies and organizations worth billions of dollars. The public is getting a good deal. Just look at the numbers - 7% growth in the last three months. Fantastic. It’s not my fault the movie crew floated off the planet and the air failed to keep them in orbit. We hold the air accountable. There’s a lot of space junk up there. Now, of course, we all know the responsibility lies here,” he emphasized, tapping his pacemaker.

“I sent them over there with a poor script and inadequate resources like...well, like food, water, maps and spare parts, not to mention body armor, deodorant and condoms. The people in charge of the poor planning having no exit strategy...easy to get in and damn hard to get out - they say. But what the hell did you expect will be brought to bear. Sometimes you just have to create a mess so you can get experience fixing it. Making a film is never easy.”

Off stage, someone asked him to be more specific.

“This is the time of the year when people want to buy turkeys, gather together, slave over hot stoves fixing all the trimmings; and you know, buy new clothes, cars, plasma machines and toast their suns and moons while casting runes and throwing stones at glass houses, crack open the bubbly, relax in their plastic lawn furniture and watch happy ends being programmed by Bollywood. Well, let me tell you, because I’ve seen the pilots and these shows have absolutely no substance, no merit, no quantifiable rational ethical or moral obligation to tell the truth.”

“You mean it’s fiction?” asked a child named Slog.

“Look,” said the director beginning to lose his temper, “I’m late for my anger management class and my therapist off is going to be mad as hell if I’m tardy, so I gotta go.”

“But you didn’t answer my question.”

“The ultimate answer is as mysterious to me as it is to you. We create the films and you write about them. Very simple. All I know is I have a film to make, I'm over budget, behind schedule, I’m getting cranky and really need to go to the bathroom. Can’t a person find any peace around here?”