Iraq in Fragments
Typecast Releasing | Release Date: November 10, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
84
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Film ThreatPhil Hall
Offers the Iraqis a rare chance to share their anger and their lives with the outside world. The resulting production is a raw and powerful film that demands to be seen. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The calm poetry of the cinematography offsets the mess of the politics to stunning effect. Read full review
100
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Oregon-born and Seattle-based director James Longley profiles three lives in his impressionistic portrait of Iraq's Sunni, Shia and Kurd communities. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Much as Emile de Antonio's neglected "In the Year of the Pig" (1968) may be the only major documentary about Vietnam that actually considers the Vietnamese, this film allows the people of Iraq to speak, and what they say is fascinating throughout. Read full review
100
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Tragically, the title of James Longley's beautifully shot 90-minute documentary refers to not only the state in which he found the Iraq during the two years he spent there shooting over 300 hours of footage, but the structure the violent factionalism that divides Iraqi Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds imposes on his film. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Langley's impeccably nonjudgmental camera knows exactly what details to record. Drawn from more than 300 hours of footage, the film's all too brief 94 minutes mesmerizes with its insight and, rarer still, its beauty. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
The first third of Iraq In Fragments is so intense--a masterpiece in miniature, really--that audiences may not have much emotion left for the rest. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
Nominated for an Oscar for best documentary feature, it's deeply humane and even more deeply unsettling, in a way that most documentaries about Iraq, which tend toward the polemic, never manage. Read full review
90
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Seattle filmmaker James Longley's poetic essay on the plight of ordinary Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds trapped in a war simultaneously waged over their heads and in their faces stands head and shoulders above an overcrowded field of documentaries about the Iraq war. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
A documentary of stunning immediacy and marvelous images.
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
One of the year's finest documentaries, a remarkable example of the conjunction of a burningly topical and newsworthy subject with a brilliant filmmaker. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Iraq in Fragments already stands up as a classic war documentary, in its unusual poetic form and by its extraordinary access to the lives of ordinary Iraqis. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
From 300 hours of material, Mr. Longley has created a collage of images, sounds and characters, an intimate, partial portrait of an unraveling nation -- a portrait that gains power partly by virtue of its incompleteness. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Alone among the works I've seen and read about Iraq in the last three years, Iraq in Fragments captures the tremendous complexity and variability of the country, offering neither facile hope nor fashionable despair. Read full review
80
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
A vivid, poetic evocation of life in post-invasion Iraq that works both as impressionistic collage and candid portraiture. Read full review
80
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Every moment of Longley's film is interesting, and the more we watch, the more clearly we realize that the film cannot solve anything for us. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarrit Ingman
Offers more questions than answers. Even the Kurds, who seem the closest thing to a success story, long for a unified Iraq. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Visually arresting and deeply disheartening, James Longley's impressionistic documentary explores the pain of a shattered country by homing in on a few tiny shards. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Longley takes us through that country without a map; he's an artful, optimistic empiricist who believes what we see matters infinitely more than what we're told. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen Johnson
In this last passage Longley shows a poetic, almost elegiacal artistry. After two years, he might not understand the Iraqi people fully, but they have won his heart and mind. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldMarta Barber
In addition to the interesting camera work, the documentary's undeniable appeal comes in how close Longley gets to the characters, who are all male. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
In the end, the movie is more than the sum of its fragments. The montages are intense, the images ravishing. The movie is tactile. When you finally feel this place, you understand just how little you understand. Read full review
70
Village VoiceMelissa Anderson
Whether or not James Longley's boldly stylized reportage breaches public indifference, its enduring value is assured: When the war is long gone, this deft construction will persist in relevance, if not for what it says about the mess we once made, then as a model of canny cinematic construction. Read full review
63
New York PostKyle Smith
All three segments are heavy on blame-America speeches, which may be a fair snapshot of Iraqi opinion, but it's strange how fond Longley seems to be of Saddam Hussein. Read full review
60
VarietyRobert Koehler
As beautiful as it is unrevealing, James Longley's Iraq in Fragments rests on a debatable but firm premise -- that the embattled country is irrevocably separated by its three dominant groups, Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds -- but brings back nothing journalistically substantial from the war front . Read full review
60
EmpirePatrick Peters
Shot over three years, this is one of the more considered and insightful Iraqi documentaries - although some may find its stylistic contrasts a little self-conscious and distracting. Read full review
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