22 March 2005

A documentary that goes behind the daily headlines out of Iraq, The Liberace Of Baghdad focuses on a pianist whose professional career came to an abrupt end with the toppling of Saddam. Shot over eight months in Baghdad in 2004 at tremendous peril to its director Sean McAllister, not to mention his subject, the film provides a vital insight into the impact on civilian life of the US-led invasion and occupation.

The film, which premiered at Sheffield International Documentary Festival in November 2004, won a special jury prize at Sundance this year after screening in the newly-launched World Documentary Competition. While continued festival play is assured, the film’s international theatrical prospects – it has already aired on the BBC in the UK – will depend on finding niche distributors who can lever the strong interest in Iraq and the high curiosity value of its idiosyncratic subject.

McAllister, whose 1998 documentary The Minders earned him the Royal Television Society’s award for best documentary, is the consummate documentary film-maker. Committed beyond the call of journalistic duty, his presence is very much a part of the film.

Sent on a recce to Iraq by the BBC to find a story about everyday life in Baghdad, he passed several fruitless weeks chasing leads, returning each evening to his hotel to chat with the pianist in the lounge. Soon, he realised the pianist was the story and ending up spending most of the year eating, drinking and bunking with him. The film is culled from 110 40-minute tapes, from which editor Ollie Huddleston has done a remarkable job of extracting a nicely focused 75 minutes.

Peter, a Christian Arab, left Iraq in his 20s to study piano in Italy. When he returned Saddam was in charge and was beginning hostilities against neighbouring Iran. Peter was forced to join the army, served on the front and killed.

After demobilisation he returned to Baghdad, started a family (his wife, a doctor, delivered one of Saddam’s daughter) and slowly began to build a name as an instructor and performer. At his height he was earning $10,000 a month, enjoying a vast wardrobe and engaging in multiple affairs to the extent that his lavish lifestyle lead to the self-imposed moniker the Liberace of Baghdad.

The title puts the joke on Peter, especially for Western viewers for whom Liberace is better known as a camp icon rather than a style-setter. Indeed, judging by his few performances in the film, Peter’s piano playing doesn’t correspond with his claims or his aspirations to be the "Chopin of Iraq".

But this only adds to the allure of this incongruous character with the hooded eyes and unfortunate pony-tail. With a cigarette perpetually between his lips, Peter proves a pragmatic guide to life during wartime: his mood, and hence the tone of the film, oscillates between bitingly satirical and deeply depressed.

Forays to and from the hotel and Peter’s suburban home continually darken that tone: a suicide bomb’s aftermath forces them to walk, leading to an impromptu encounter with a woman’s whose son is likely a victim of the attack.

Ironically, despite the promised liberation, Peter’s great desire is to leave Iraq for the US where his estranged wife and two of their four children reside. Meanwhile, McAllister spends time with the two adult children who have remained in Baghdad; the daughter is particularly vociferous about the failed promise of the US occupation and yearns for the days of Saddam. Her steely reserve is shattered by the death of a neighbour, murdered for working with a US company.

What sets the film apart is the rapport between journalist and subject – McAllister and Peter were on top of each other during the shooting, hunkering down against air raids – and the camera is very much an extension of McAllister with the viewer is along for the ride.

As the weeks pass, and the kidnappings and beheadings of foreigners escalates, the film begins to feel like all-too-real reality TV. It reaches a climax when the pair become lost on the drive to Peter’s house – street lights and traffic lights are things of the past - and end up in the no-man’s-land that is the airport highway. As the two men, with cracking voices, attempt to joke that this may be the end of the film, and McAllister cringes with his camera into the passenger seat, one can’t help doing the same.

Denis Seguin