Heavy Metal in Baghdad

Iraq’s only heavy metal band in performance

If there is anything good to come out of the war in Iraq, it is film documentary. Over the past four years or so, there has been a steady stream of excellent movies. The latest of these is “Heavy Metal in Baghdad” that showed briefly in theaters to universal acclaim. With a modest budget, the documentary allows the principals to speak for themselves. Acrassicauda, the Latin nomenclature for the black scorpion that is found in the Iraqi desert, is the name of Iraq’s only heavy metal band. Their struggle for survival, both physically and culturally, is a reminder of the sustaining power of rock-and-roll.

“Heavy Metal in Baghdad” is related thematically to the excellent “Operation Filmmaker” that opened in New York theaters yesterday. Muthana Mohmed, the young aspiring Iraqi film-maker in this movie, simply wants to make art but events conspire against him. After a bomb blast has destroyed the only film school in Baghdad, he is forced to rely on the dubious charity of Hollywood actor Liev Schreiber for a job as a gopher. And not long after the war begins, the rehearsal studio of Acrassicauda is destroyed by an American missile. Unlike Mohmed, the band has no deep-pocketed benefactors and they are forced into desperate measures to continue with their art.

The members of the band were discovered by Vice Magazine, a more interesting version of Rolling Stone, in 2004 just as Muthana Mohmed was first noticed by MTV. Since Vice has a film company, it was a natural project for Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi—two of its executive producer/directors. They made a series of trips to Baghdad, conducted at extraordinary risk, in order to interview members of the band, particularly the leader Firas who expresses his dream at the film’s end after he has become an exile in Syria: “I hope I can live somewhere else, not in Iraq, so I can get long hair, long beard, Zakk Wylde-style, You know what I’m saying.” (Zakk Wylde was a guitarist with Ozzy Osbourne.)

Firas, a bass player, is a compelling figure. Although he describes himself and the band as non-political, nearly every word he has to say about Iraq would seem to accurately describe its descent into hell. After things took a turn for the worse in 2005, it became impossible for him to meet another band member even though they only lived 15 minutes from each other.

The final 30 minutes or so of “Heavy Metal in Baghdad” takes place in Damascus, where all of the band members have sought refuge. As such, it is one of the few documentaries that have described the terrible costs of the war on over 2 million Iraqis who have been forced from their country. Firas says that life in Syria is less than zero compared to the zero that was Iraq. At least in Iraq they knew the terrain, even if it might cost their lives. In Syria, they were safe but deprived from their livelihood as musicians. Apparently, despite the difficulties facing a heavy metal band there both under Saddam and afterwards, there was a fan base. One of the high points of the documentary is a performance by Acrassicauda at a hotel within the Green Zone before an audience of adoring fans, including some sprawled on the floor in an Iraqi version of a mosh pit.

The official DVD release date for “Heavy Metal in Baghdad” is June 10. Look for it in your better video stores or Netflix. It can also be ordered from the film’s website.