One of the "Persistence of Vision" selections, this film was originally released in 1988. Directed by Werner Herzog, it’s a documentary of the utter devastation of Iraq after the war Desert Storm.
The sheer scale of this environmental disaster is breathtakingly beautiful. It’s difficult to describe the beauty of the imagery, the flames, the plumes of smoke and the lakes of oil, considering it is the imagery of disaster – everything as far as you can see is black and dead. What looks like blue lakes, as we fly over the countryside, are just reflections of the sky in the pools of black oil. Firefighters work day and night to put out these infernos of roaring flame and soot using everything and anything: water, dirt and explosives. And when they finally succeed in putting out the fire we can see them actually relighting them! (I am not clear on this part though it mentions in the film that they are bored when the roar of the fire is gone).
The film is an apocalyptic sampling of ecological disaster on an unimaginable scale!

Reviewed by Eric Michel, FilmCities