Bagdad, current days
Saddam Hussein is deposed. To win over the Iraqi population, the American Army unearths the mass graves of the dictator’s victims. The Sayyid and Amina are standing beside one of these pits. Both of them know that their beloved’s remains are somewhere within. And, in fact, the amulet he always wore is on one of the skeletons. All hope is now definitely dead; the mourning can begin.
At the same time, near the Bagdad airport.
Jimmy the soldier, waiting for his turn in front of the troops’ telephone booth, watches the GI in front of him shoot himself in the head. For this son and grandson of Army heroes, this sight only adds to his doubts about the war’s validity. Even moreso because he is then assigned the task of sending the GI’s family a message explaining how their son died heroically under enemy fire.
The Sayyid of Bagdad describes the challenges, as well as the respect and tolerance these three people show, during this time of chaos. Through them, we witness the complexity of a war in which it is increasingly difficult to say what is good and what is evil…
Back home in the southern marshes of Iraq, in a region Saddam intentionally drained so as to starve the population, the Sayyid pins all his hopes on the joint UN-American mission to bring water back to the marshes. But the project never gets off the ground and good will wanes. Then the Sayyid loses his friend Farès in the terrorist strike on the UN building where he had gone to plead their case.
On leave in California, Jimmy discovers a wealth of disappointment: he’s unable to share his doubts with his family and friends. Questioning America is like spitting on the graves of his father and grandfather, and his mother just can’t take that. Nor can the mother of the soldier who committed suicide. She is unable to bear the truth that her son isn’t a hero.
Back in Bagdad, his inner turmoil grows. The truth about the WMD’s comes out. Chaos has replaced dictatorship. People rape, betray and lynch right in front of the GI’s, who are either powerless bystanders or willing participants. This war isn’t what Jimmy believed it was. He eventually decides to go AWOL after meeting the Sayyid during the UN-American mission which he escorts.
Amina has yet another experience of this chaos. Coming from an ethnic group that is now being murdered, and being hunted by her husband’s torturer, who has the support of several former Saddam supporters, Amina feels threatened in Bagdad. She heads north, hoping to find her old friend Ahmed, who is an atheist and theater lover like herself. But the region has just come under control of the Kurds, who had been chased out by Saddam. Amina isn’t welcome there either. She returns to Bagdad and finds her friend Ahmed…but also her husband’s torturer, who she can no longer escape.
A painful tale which ends with an exceptional allegory. Ahmed, Amina and Jimmy stage a performance of The Legend of Hussein the Martyr, a Shiite chief who defied tyranny.
