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Bagdad Central (Review)
Apr. 13th, 2021 06:31 pmCourtesy of ARTE, the French/German channel, I stumbled across this six part miniseries. Set in Iraq shortly after Saddam, it offers a solid noir plot, with the main twist being that it's believably and consistently told in the pov of the Iraqui main characters. Our hero is (former) Inspector Muhsin al-Khafaji, played by Waleed Zuaiter, whose son died as a dissident near the end of the Saddam era; at the start of the story, his older daughter, Sahwsan (Leem Lubany) has disappeared, and his search for her kicks the plot off, while his younger daughter, Mouaj (Judy Namir), is sick, which means he direly needs medical help. And those are just the starting difficulties. His search for his older daughter makes him suspicious to the American authorities which means, in Bush era Iraq, waterboarding and other brutalities, and no sooner has he gotten out of this that he's become a ping pong ball between British slime ball Frank Temple (played by Bertie Carvel, whom I last saw as Jonathan Strange) and US elephant-in-porcellain-surroundings Captain Parodi. There's also an Iraqui interpreter who loathes Khafaji for having been a part of the police in the Saddam era, and the death of his son still is an ongoing trauma for the surviving family. In short, Khafaji as befits a noir detective has all the odds against him, has do deal with shady authorities, and is haunted by his past. The emotional hook of the series lies in watching him navigate all these troubles and try and figure out a way to outwit Americans and Brits both while saving both his daughters and staying alive. Oh, and there's a case to solve in addition to finding his daughter (though as it turns out, inevitably, connected with her disappearance) as well.
The series wasn't shot on location, but it was shot in Marocco, and thus the war damaged Bagdad looks credibly non-Western, plus half the dialogue is in subtitled Arabic. Khafaji makes for an engaging hero, trying not just for survival but also for survival with decency, and this is a series where being kind is compatible with being smart, too. If I have one complaint, then it's the way the series wants to have its cake and eat it with Khaaji's backstory. ( Spoilery observations follow. ) That aside, though, I thought the series did an excellent job using the noir tropes in a new setting (for them). (There's even a mysterious lady of uncertain loyalities, the (female) professor who was Sahwsan's mentor at the university.) And Bagdad, fresh out of a dictatorship, occupied by forces who have little idea what they're doing, with some of the younger people getting radicalized while others try to find a different life, and where you can get shot by any number of people from any number of factions just when crossing the street is both a good setting for such a a story and a vivid reminder of quite recent not even history.
("We liberated you! Why aren't you grateful" one of the US soldiers yells when a passing jeep is shouted at by Bagdad citizens; Khafajji is one of the passengers in the car, and the expression on his face, which still bears the marks of the "enhanced interrogation" he's been subjected to, says it all.)
(I should add that there are sympathetic Americans around, too, but they are not the ones from whose pov the story is told.)
I saw from the credits the miniseries is based on a novel, which I haven't read, so I can't say how faithful or not it deals with the source material. But as a miniseries, it felt briskly told, with engaging characters and a good, if perhaps too tropey conclusion.
The series wasn't shot on location, but it was shot in Marocco, and thus the war damaged Bagdad looks credibly non-Western, plus half the dialogue is in subtitled Arabic. Khafaji makes for an engaging hero, trying not just for survival but also for survival with decency, and this is a series where being kind is compatible with being smart, too. If I have one complaint, then it's the way the series wants to have its cake and eat it with Khaaji's backstory. ( Spoilery observations follow. ) That aside, though, I thought the series did an excellent job using the noir tropes in a new setting (for them). (There's even a mysterious lady of uncertain loyalities, the (female) professor who was Sahwsan's mentor at the university.) And Bagdad, fresh out of a dictatorship, occupied by forces who have little idea what they're doing, with some of the younger people getting radicalized while others try to find a different life, and where you can get shot by any number of people from any number of factions just when crossing the street is both a good setting for such a a story and a vivid reminder of quite recent not even history.
("We liberated you! Why aren't you grateful" one of the US soldiers yells when a passing jeep is shouted at by Bagdad citizens; Khafajji is one of the passengers in the car, and the expression on his face, which still bears the marks of the "enhanced interrogation" he's been subjected to, says it all.)
(I should add that there are sympathetic Americans around, too, but they are not the ones from whose pov the story is told.)
I saw from the credits the miniseries is based on a novel, which I haven't read, so I can't say how faithful or not it deals with the source material. But as a miniseries, it felt briskly told, with engaging characters and a good, if perhaps too tropey conclusion.
