“Good Kurds, Bad Kurds: No Friends but the Mountains” ((star)(star)(star) 1/2 ), a clear, concise and very informative video documentary about the “Kurdish problem” in Turkey, Iraq and neighboring countries, is top-notch investigative journalism. Written, produced and co-shot (along with acclaimed cinematographer Haskell Wexler) by freelance reporter Kevin McKiernan, it delves into the political paradox that is U.S. policy toward the Kurdish independence movement. While we have been pro-Kurd in Iraq, where we once encouraged their fighters to do much of the dirty work against Saddam Hussein, we are anti-Kurd in Turkey, where we have labeled the PKK (the Kurdish equivalent of the PLO) a terrorist organization. The difference, according to McKiernan, is that the U.S. needs Turkey as an ally because it occupies such a powerful strategic position in the region. Accordingly, we continue to sell weapons to Turkey, which proceeds to use those same weapons to kill Kurdish rebels.
In an effort to humanize the complex political problem that has been raging for hundreds of years, McKiernan focuses on a Kurdish family that moved to California years back and opened a washer/dryer repair shop. But it didn’t take long for them to get involved in the independence movement from afar, to the point where one of the sons becomes a key Washington lobbyist for the establishment of “Kurdistan,” a once-promised country that remains a dream for the millions of Kurds in search of a homeland.
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“Good Kurds, Bad Kurds: No Friends but the Mountains” plays at 8 p.m. Saturday at Chicago Filmmakers, 5243 N. Clark St. Tickets: $3-$7. 773-293-1447.
`The Red and the White’
Miklos Jansco’s “The Red and the White” ((star)(star)(star)(star)), the first Hungarian-Russian co-production, was produced in 1967 to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Russian revolution. How ironic, then, that it remains one of the great anti-war movies ever made. Set in central Russia in 1918, near a makeshift field hospital that keeps changing hands as the fortunes of war ebb and flow, the film focuses on the vagaries of war and how momentary acts of courage and valor can bring instant death. Though the story zeros in on those Hungarian soldiers who joined the International Brigade of the Red Army to help support the revolution, and how they were the first to be executed when ferreted out by roving bands of White guards, it becomes clear very early on that director Jansco has a much bigger agenda to address. To that end, he uses every edge and corner of the wide screen, his camera bobbing and weaving like a crafty fighter, to suggest the controlled chaos that is a country at war. In one particularly chilling moment, a field nurse refuses to identify which of the wounded are Red soldiers to a White guard officer, claiming that they are all her patients. When he threatens to kill her staff if she refuses, she grudgingly points the soldiers out. Minutes later, however, when a Red platoon arrives seemingly to save the day, the nurse is shot for her supposed act of treason. The tragedy and absurdity of war, served up in stunning black and white.
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“The Red and the White” plays at 6 p.m. Monday and 8:45 p.m. Wednesday at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St. Tickets: $4-$8. 312-846-2600.
