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Like James Longley with “Iraq in Fragments,” “Meeting Resistance” directors Steve Connors and Molly Bingham did not “embed” themselves into the Iraq occupation, but moved among the people, nameless and faceless in most media portrayals, who actually live in Baghdad. Their approach is journalistic, less “fragmented” than Longley’s, taking almost a year after the toppling of Saddam Hussein to gain the confidence of a succession of figures who can answer a question that one hopes one would never have to answer of one’s own country: “What would you do if your country was invaded?” In the case of the United States during the Revolutionary War, the answer was “Fight back and forget the British.” In Iraq, we know part of the story. Who are the insurgents? Is their reaction justifiable on their own terms or in more universal ways? Connors and Bingham’s film is unstinting in its investigation. (A few viewers will resist the visual techniques used to blur the anonymity of some of figures onscreen.) “Meeting Resistance” ends in mid-2004 and does not attempt to “balance” it with talking heads that would call it “treason” to ask these questions. Some will question the ethics of their time spent in the company of professed fighters against American troops, but the perspective is valuable, a troubling sidebar to the coruscating “No End in Sight.” 84m. BetaSP. (Ray Pride)
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