The grim reality of daily life for the ordinary citizens of Iraq is hammered home in Heavy Metal in Baghdad. Filmed over four years by New York-based filmmakers Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi, the illuminating doc profiles Acrassicauda, the city’s only heavy metal band.
Taking their name from the Latin word meaning \"black scorpion,\" the quartet played a grand total of six concerts in five-and-a-half years, quite a feat considering they had to deal with death threats, curfews, the bombing of their practice space and almost constant fear. We see what turned out to be their last concert in the country at a Baghdad hotel in 2005.
Moretti and Alvi went back to Baghdad in August 2006 to discover bass player Firas al Lateef was running a computer store and his former band-mates had fled to Syria and Jordan. 'Most of our fans are dead or out of the country," Firas reflects bitterly. Four months later, the filmmakers travel to Damascus, where all four musos have sought refuge, a snapshot of the hard times endured by the 1.2 million Iraqis who live in Syria. They’re not allowed to work legally and are forced to take menial jobs, while lamenting the family members they left behind in Iraq.
The headbangers re-unite to play one gig in a café/pool hall and to record three songs in a rudimentary studio. The doc’s chief weakness is the annoying habit of narrator Alvi to frequently hog the camera, despite the fact he’s neither a great interviewer nor a perceptive commentator: he’s no Michael Moore.
There’s a sad footnote: Six months after filming finished, the guys were forced to sell their instruments to make ends meet.
