Fires of Kuwait

The neatest thing about this documentary was watching the fire crews come up with the many ingenious ways to battle the various oil well fires. I saw this film on an IMAX screen which certainly added it's own cinematic touch to the works. There's nothing quite like watching a 40 ft. pillar of flame shooting up in front of you. I've also seen the video version, and while it's not as visually stunning, it is still highly enjoyable.

While I was terrified by the huge fires and s***, I was also wondering the year of production - I watched it today on YouTube, in the year 2021. Then I got to know it was filmed in 1992, what surprised me, because video quality is amazing.

Anyways, I think the events of this documentary are the worst crime Saddam Hussein is guilty for.

The engulfing flames that hide the whole desertic scenario, leaving only the colors yellow and black result of the combination fire and smoke, present in "Jarhead" is just an example of what's to be seen in the great documentary "Fires of Kuwait". But the CGI composed image from Sam Mendes film doesn't get near the real dimension of what happened in the early 1990's when Saddam Hussein ordered the destruction of all the oil fields in Kuwait during the Golf War. It's disturbing images, the pollution and waste of resources, haunting, a hellish nightmare yet it's strangely beautiful, astounding, hypnotizing. It's a shame that technology still isn't able to make us feel what it is to be close to an event of this magnitude, to smell, to feel the heat. The closer we can get of this effect (or at least the lucky ones who saw it in the theaters) is just the images, fully developed in IMAX with outstanding resolution. From the tragedy, we get the spectacle of fumes.

It's importance isn't wholly on the burning, it's about the team effort from people all over the world who coordinated and worked to extinguish the fires the best way they could. Their operation tested several different ways to combat the fire with one team using of water from pipelines (a team even tried to make a way to the ocean through the desert) and another team had a "The Wages of Fear" kind of mission, to put out fire with more fire by using dynamite. 9 months of extreme hard work, horrible conditions and a mission that seemed impossible. The challenge and the positive outcome of it, that's where the story is, that's why we join this real venture guided by the powerful voice of the great Rip Torn. 9/10

It may not be fair to review this work from the DVD version rather than the IMAX adventure it was meant to be - the Warner DVD picture quality being uncomfortably compressed. Still, for a purely visual experience as this was meant to be, camera placement counts for a lot and David Douglas has nothing on Herzog's team. It's the difference between hack prose and epic poetry.

Douglas' approach to the ruination of Kuwaiti oil fields juxtaposes the horrific fire geysers underneath didactic narration about firefighting (voiceover by the lackluster Rip Torn), reducing the impact to that of an in-house industry video or recruiting tool for the Army Corps of Engineers. After showing the colossal scale of environmental devastation, Douglas has the temerity to put a feel-good spin at the end, creating a bizarre agenda that is anything but convincing.

Obviously, David Douglas's Academy Award-nominated "Fires of Kuwait" looks at the international effort to extinguish Kuwait's burning oilfields after the Gulf War.

But there are a few things worth mentioning. Even if you ignore the US's arming of Saddam Hussein in the '80s (including Reagan's willingness to forgive the accidental Iraqi attack on a US warship in 1987, considering Saddam too important a bulwark against Iran to criticize), and even if you ignore the US's devastation of Iraq in 1991 and further in 2003, it's worth noting Kuwaiti attitudes towards the US.

In the aftermath of the first Gulf War - which never really ended, as the US prevented Iraq from rebuilding - Kuwaitis adored the US and even named a street after George Bush. But a "60 Minutes" report on Kuwait a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks revealed that the US was no longer that popular there. The Kuwaitis saw the US backing Israel, and were also displeased with the US occupation of Afghanistan. In fact, 34% of Kuwaitis considered Osama bin Laden a terrorist, while 42% considered him a freedom fighter. At a summit of the Arab League in April 2002, Kuwait's representative told Iraq's representative that the Kuwaitis were willing to forgive and forget.

Well, look where Iraq is now. Thanks for nothing, Mark Sykes and François Picot!

Anyway, a fairly interesting documentary. I wonder if anyone realizes that no wars have gotten started over renewable energy.