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HEAVY METAL IN BAGHDAD
Directed by Eddy Moretti & Suroosh Alvi
Produced by Moretti, Alvi & Monica Hampton
Edited by Bernardo Loyola
Music by Acrassicauda
Released by Vice Films
English & Arabic with English subtitles
USA. 84 min Not Rated

The musical genre that embraces raging screams, deafening drums, and medically questionable dancing may be the perfect conduit for anger expression. So why should it be shocking that a nation with so much to be angry about has produced one (and only one) heavy metal band?

Maybe it’s because the group of Iraqi men who call themselves Acrassicauda (Latin for black scorpion) started up under a regime which equated heavy metal with Satan worship and criminalized headbanging because it bore a remote likeness to Jewish prayer. Or that after Saddam fell and the brief period of calm devolved into civil war, meeting for jam sessions was life threatening and holding a concert unthinkable.

Having met and interviewed the band before the insurgency, directors Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi slink back into war-torn Baghdad to check on the band and, frankly, to see if they are still alive. They find them scattered and angrier than ever. A few members had relocated to Damascus, a hub of Iraqi refugees. Two others who stayed in Baghdad – and lived only 15 minutes apart – hadn’t seen each other in six months. The absurdity of playing heavy metal in Iraq was palpable.

But in many ways, the trials of the film crew are as interesting as those of the band. The ballsy, borderline suicidal directors go to great lengths to point out their bullet proof vests, ever-increasing security team, and the constant threat of snipers, road bombs, and kidnapping. They aren’t allowed to wear seat belts for fear of looking like foreigners and can hardly leave their armored vehicle save for some nerve-racking stops at safe havens and hotels.

So were the men they came to interview worth all the risk? OK, they have a phenomenal lead guitarist (Tony) and a few original songs, but with only six shows under their belts, they sometimes come off as your run-of-the-mill, foul-mouthed rockers with smuggled Slipknot T-shirts and dreams of glory. Other times, they break from their oddly Americanized banter to tell us something that resonates. Bass player Firas criticizes the artificiality of the Shiite/Sunni divide. In a moment of exquisite sadness and rage, drummer Marwan calls the American public pigs for literally and metaphorically changing the channel on Iraq. But perhaps most disquieting, Tony says, in a strained and emotional English, “If I don’t play guitar as hard and fast as I can, I’d kill someone.” Yana Litovsky
June 20, 2008