Letters from Baghdad

Name: Letters from Baghdad
Genre: Documentary
Released: June 2, 2017
Duration: 95 min
Rating: 71
Cast: Adam Astill, Amed Hashimi, Ammar Haj Ahmad, Andrew Havill, Anthony Edridge

2017

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Generally favorable reviews based on 13 Critic Reviews

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Letters From Baghdad

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Movie Details & Credits

Vitagraph Films | Release Date: June 2, 2017 | Not Rated

Starring: Adam Astill, Amed Hashimi, Ammar Haj Ahmad, Andrew Havill, Anthony Edridge, Joanna David, Michael Higgs, Michelle Eugene, Simon Chandler, Tom Chadbon

Summary: Letters from Baghdad tells the extraordinary and dramatic story of Gertrude Bell, the most powerful woman in the British Empire in her day. She shaped the modern Middle East after World War I in ways that still reverberate today. More influential than her friend and colleague Lawrence of Arabia, Bell helped draw the borders of Iraq andLetters from Baghdad tells the extraordinary and dramatic story of Gertrude Bell, the most powerful woman in the British Empire in her day. She shaped the modern Middle East after World War I in ways that still reverberate today. More influential than her friend and colleague Lawrence of Arabia, Bell helped draw the borders of Iraq and established the Iraq Museum. Why has she been written out of history?… Expand

Director: Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum

Genre(s): Documentary

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 95 min

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Critic Reviews

100

G. Allen Johnson

Jun 14, 2017

Although it would take much more than a 95 minute documentary for true enlightenment, Letters to Baghdad also helps us understand the complex political situation stemming from the gradual dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Read full review

Mark Feeney

Sep 20, 2017

Swinton’s vocal performance as Bell is so vivid and absorbing it could be entered as evidence for the defense. Swinton makes Bell so compelling it’s easy to overlook what a paradoxical figure she was. Read full review

Jeffrey Fleishman

Jun 8, 2017

The film elegantly unfolds as if someone had peeked inside a steerage trunk and thumbed through the brittle pages of scrapbooks showing sailboats on the Euphrates and hieroglyphics in the moonlight. Read full review

Jay Weissberg

Jun 8, 2017

The bottom line is that Oelbaum and Krayenbühl have fleshed out a complex, fascinating figure. Read full review

Anthony Lane

Jan 29, 2020

You emerge from the film with a divided heart: thrilled to hear of a woman who, ignoring the dictates of the age, filled her days to overflowing, yet ashamed to measure your own days and to find them, by comparison, hollow and bare. Is it too late to follow Gertrude Bell’s example? First, hire your camel Read full review

Tricia Olszewski

Jun 15, 2017

Although Bell herself is fascinating, Letters From Baghdad is less so. Read full review

RogerEbert.com Vikram Murthi

Jun 2, 2017

It’s a disorganized onslaught of primary source material that doesn’t so much shed light as it does simply exist. Read full review

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Brent_Marchant

Jun 29, 2017

An inventive documentary offering telling the story of a remarkable woman whose recommendations, if they had been listened to, may have spared many much needless hardship. Told through extensive archive footage and the actual words of historic figures, the film provides an array of insightsAn inventive documentary offering telling the story of a remarkable woman whose recommendations, if they had been listened to, may have spared many much needless hardship. Told through extensive archive footage and the actual words of historic figures, the film provides an array of insights of both a personal and political nature, a rare fusion indeed. Admittedly, the narrative would have benefited from some additional historical context to help elucidate the presented content, but, this aside, the film gives viewers a candid look into the life of someone who wielded considerable influence -- and may have been able to accomplish even more were it not for the archaic prejudices of her day.… Expand

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