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Message: <blockquote data-quote="onegoodboy" data-source="post: 279196" data-attributes="member: 3099"> New film 'The Situation' highlights complexities of Iraq amid troop-surge debatePlot Outline: A love triangle between a CIA operative, an American journalist, and an Iraqi photographer plays out against the backdrop of the war in Iraq.NEW YORK: The timing couldn't be better for independent filmmaker Philip Haas.His modest $2 million movie, "The Situation," one of the first U.S. feature films to focus on the fighting in Iraq, opens this month amid the nationwide debate over President Bush's plan to send more troops to the war-torn country.Although the drama crafted by Haas and journalist Wendell Steavenson is set in 2004, its message of chaos and misunderstanding, mixed with violence, rings true for Iraq today. If anything, Haas said, the situation - the innocuous word Iraqis in the film use to refer to the war and all that goes with it - has only worsened.The 106-minute movie opens with a group of American soldiers throwing a boy off a bridge in Samarra. The fictional scene is reminiscent of the real-life incident in 2004 when an Iraqi curfew violator drowned and an Army lieutenant was ultimately sentenced to 45 days in a military prison for his role in the deathIn "The Situation," that act triggers a chain of events that feed on the deep-seated rifts and corruption that permeate Iraq. Connie Nielsen stars as an American journalist who attempts to write about the incident, only to get caught up in the confusion and dynamics of Iraqi tribalism.Her boyfriend, played by Damian Lewis, is an American intelligence officer living in the fortified Green Zone - complete with a Chinese restaurant and swimming pool - who is trying to win over the Iraqis with promises of hospitals and water-treatment plants. At the same time, he struggles to figure out who he can trust."The Situation" opened in a few New York theaters Feb. 2. It is opening in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. on Friday and in hundreds of theaters across the country on Feb. 16.Haas said he, too, thought the film might be seen as politically polarizing, viewed as a Michael Moore kind of anti-Bush movie. But he said Republicans, Democrats and even some soldiers have told him that the film is an accurate representation of the chaos that has enveloped Iraq."Of the audiences I've spoken with, there is a sense that everyone needs to see this movie because it gives everyone a common ground, sort of a microcosm of what's going on," he said.For Haas, 54, "The Situation" marks a departure from his past directorial work, which focused on adaptations of novels, including "Up at the Villa" in 2000 and the Oscar-nominated "Angels and Insects" in 1995.Nielsen, who costarred in "Gladiator," said she was drawn to the film for similar reasons."I wanted to work out some of the frustration I was feeling from watching the news," Nielsen told an audience in New York last week. "I just felt, oh my God, finally, here is a story that attempts to describe a culture, but a culture that is in a huge state of crisis."Working on an independent film budget, Haas was able to economize by hiring some of the special-effects crew from the film "Babel," who had just finished working in Morocco. They liked the script and agreed to work for a fraction of their usual price. Haas also enlisted intelligence officers at the American embassy to help him stage battle scenes, and rented Humvees, helicopters and tanks from the Moroccan army.President Bush might find the film enlightening, Haas said."We'll deliver a print to the White House. He'll like it," he quipped.The situation<img src="http://i5.tinypic.com/4ghv62w.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><img src="http://media.komotv.com/images/070205_Iraq_film.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />Connie Nielsen<img src="http://i1.tinypic.com/35lhsep.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />Damian Lewis<img src="http://i12.tinypic.com/3012h34.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/09/america/NA-FEA-A-E-MOV-US-Iraq-Movie.php?page=1" target="_blank">Source</a></blockquote>

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