FILM REVIEW 'Control Room' seems to lack careful planning

Separating good guys from bad guys depends on your background.
By DESSON THOMPSON
WASHINGTON POST
For Americans, mostly informed by the Pentagon and embedded American and European journalists, it was the "War in Iraq," a daily drama with attractive graphics and dramatic captions on the television.
It had good guys and bad; easily identifiable moments of heroism, of conflict, of tragedy. It was a miniseries. And although families of the military were directly affected, it was another armchair campaign for most.
But for much of the Arab world and its television stations, particularly al-Jazeera, it was "Invasion of Our World." Al-Jazeera covered the scene from the ground, as opposed to safe tents or from the air.
The villains were buzz-cut soldiers, the heroes were bloodied mothers screaming in front of their bomb-cratered homes and yelling at President Bush: "Where's your humanity?" Democracy came at the tip end of a missile.
Yet, al-Jazeera also presented its own dramatic hyperbole, beginning newscasts with footage of bombing victims intercut with shots of the American military. And it was just as reluctant to air ideologically inconvenient facts as its Western adversaries.
Fault lines
Two wars. Two culturally skewed perspectives. Neither one telling the complete truth, yet both adamant that they were. Ideological conviction gushing forth like sabotaged oil. Both sides, naturally, working closely with God.
These cultural and religious fault lines are made jarringly clear in "Control Room," Jehane Noujaim's enlightening, if structurally relaxed documentary about last year's Iraq invasion, how the Pentagon presented it, how American press frequently rubber-stamped it, and how the staff of al-Jazeera did their own partisan part, too.
Noujaim, a co-director of the fascinating "Startup.com," does not seem to know what she's filming. The movie feels like an editing job of found footage, rather than a carefully planned shoot. But what she does find is absorbing, simply for its three-dimensional perspective.
The documentary covers the main highlights of the war's press coverage, including al-Jazeera's highly controversial decision to show footage of captured American troops, and the eventual fall of Baghdad.
Noujaim also attended news briefings by Centcom (the abbreviation for the American military's U.S. Central Command), witnessed candid conversations between journalists and Centcom press officer Lt. Josh Rushing, and spent virtually unlimited time in the al-Jazeera newsroom.
She also conducted many interviews with, and followed around, al-Jazeera journalists such as Hassan Ibrahim and senior producer Samir Khader.
'Rigid societies'
The job of al-Jazeera, Khader says, is to "shake up rigid societies. Wake up. There's something happening in the world." But it's not entirely clear if he means any rigid societies in the Arab world. He speaks with impassioned vitriol about Donald Rumsfeld yet also admits that, if Fox News offered him a job, he'd take it immediately.
The al-Jazeera journalists aren't bashful about their allegiance. An al-Jazeera employee whose job is to interpret the statements of Pentagon press spokesmen and President Bush makes no secret of his disgust at the Americans that he's translating.
And when news images show Saddam Hussein's statue being pulled down, a female al-Jazeera producer laments: "We lost Baghdad."