Finding Dreamland

Correction: This article should have noted that the film won the Working Films-sponsored content+intent=change award.

Before the car bombings and the market-square standoffs, before the growing hatred and the contractors hanged from bridges, Fallujah was occupied by just citizens and soldiers, trying to make sense of it all. It is in this Fallujah, in the winter of 2004, that filmmakers Garrett Scott and Ian Olds find the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, based out of Fort Bragg, N.C. The two filmmakers stayed with the men of the 82nd for six weeks: living with them, going on missions with them and gradually gaining their trust.

"When they first came we were like 'f-- these guys,'" said Luis Pacheco, who was a medic in the 82nd Airborne. "We're going out to do our missions, risking our lives. It's just kinda like they're taking up our space."

Not only are media perceived as taking up room in close quarters, they are also further endangering troops, Pacheco said. "When you get a slot allotted for media on the vehicles you're taking out another gun," he said. "You're putting in a cameraman or a writer instead of a gun."

Scott and Olds managed to overcome this initial resentment because of the length of their stay, Pacheco said "Most people stay like three or four days; we don't really get to talk to them-then they get the hell out of there."

The footage Scott and Olds shot while in Iraq became Occupation: Dreamland, a documentary premiering at The Carolina Theatre Friday.

After the one-night screening at The Carolina, the film will be opening in Raleigh and Fayetteville, allowing the soldiers from Fort Bragg to be among the first to view the documentary.

Most of the soldiers portrayed in the film, however, have scattered, with some taking different posts and others leaving the military.

"When you're out there you're going through all kinds of emotions, sometimes you're mad, sometimes you're happy. Mostly I was sort of pissed off," said Pacheco. Many of the soldiers express feelings of frustration. In one poignant scene when the squad tries to explain why they arrested a woman to angry Fallujans, Lt. Matt Bacik reflects on the futility of trying to explain the purpose of the American Army to Iraqis. "You say I'm bringing in bad guys-I'm bringing in terrorists, and they're like, 'Yeah, that was my brother.'"

At some point in the film, most of the featured soldiers express some misgiving about either the presence of the United States in Iraq or the tactics by which the occupation is being carried out.

"I think I'm going to catch a lot of [flack] for that," Scott said, "because I think people want to see the Republicans in the movie being as diverse and outspoken as some of the Democrat guys." Scott said he believes many of the soldiers who supported the war didn't feel it was necessary to speak out because their side was assumed to be the norm. "They didn't feel there was anything to blab about, so it ends up looking very one-sided. I'm not sure how to remedy that."

Yet even if they were not questioning the war effort itself, Olds said, most of the soldiers expressed frustration simply because of the nature of their task. "Chris [Corcione] was for the war and proud, but still there's this sense of wavering," Olds said. "The job of occupation is a very conflicting thing; it's hard to have a sense of progress."

The constant, he said, was their commitment to doing their jobs well, in spite of their doubts.

This and other insights into the military were as new to Olds as they will be to many viewers of the film. " I had no military experience," said Olds. "I always thought the military was like a machine-an abstract thing. And in some ways the whole point of the movie is making the war less abstract."

At one point in the film, a soldier remarks, " I think there are things people don't need to know about the military. People want their steak, but they don't want to know how the cow gets butchered." For Scott and Olds, the mission of Occupation: Dreamland was to make a film about how the cow gets butchered.

Wood said he supported the idea from the beginning, unlike some members of the division. "Ian and Garrett told me when they first got there that the idea of the film was to show the actual reality of us being there-to be embedded in a squad and show the day-to-day life whether on a mission or back at base and playing video games or whatever." People who are not in the military, he said, tend to assume all soldiers share a common mentality. "They just see people on TV all dressed the same, like androids or something."

One common thread between the soldiers emerges in the film, however: a sense that their lives before the military were hitting a wall. For some it was petty crime and community college. For others, like Wood, it was a stifling small-town mentality. Corcione was playing in a metal band with black hair down to his waist before he shaved it off for a new start in the Army.

At one point in the film, Army recruiters use this fear of the dead-end life to try to convince soldiers whose tours are up to re-enlist.

Woods and Pacheco are both shown attending a session in which their superiors question their plans for when they leave the army.

"Every week you got to go stand before the first sergeant and tell him why you're not re-enlisting, and if you tell them you're not re-enlisting you got to say what you're gonna do with your life," said Pacheco. "As soon as people saw I was getting out, I wasn't treated the same."

Pacheco, who said he left the Army because of personal issues back home, said he took this reaction personally, especially when he was accused of being unpatriotic for wanting to leave.

"It was a joke," said Wood. "Those guys who are there and they're saying, 'you're not going to make it in the real world,' how the hell do they know? They've been in the Army since they were 17."

Along with the high frustrations of the soldiers, Dreamland also chronicles the growing tension and resentment among residents of Fallujah, as they see their friends and relatives arrested and killed. The film presents scenes of Iraqis having civilized, even friendly, conversations with American soldiers through Army interpreters. This veneer of calm slowly gives way to the random gunfire and building resistance. The film ends as the 82nd Airborne is preparing to be replaced by the U.S. Marines.

"It was really evident even to the highest up guys that there was a lot of work to be done," said Wood. "You can't change a city like Fallujah in seven months."

Whether Occupation: Dreamland has the power to change the way Americans view the war is yet to be seen.

The film won the MTV-sponsored " Action + Intent = Change" award at the 2005 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, held each April in Durham. The award gave the filmmakers a small grant toward distribution, which may enable Dreamland to eventually reach more theatres. Scott and Olds said they plan to continue reaching out to unconventional audiences, like the Triangle market.

"Smaller towns, rural people, military people are not usually the target for documentaries," said Scott.

A panel discussion on the film at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Sept. 17 will be aimed at local as well as academic communities. Former soldiers will discuss their take on the film in the morning, with the filmmakers and experts from Duke and UNC serving on an afternoon panel.

For Pacheco, who hopes to become a Chicago fireman, the film is one positive outcome of a mixed experience in the Army. "As far as I feel now, I feel we lost some good men for unnecessary-well, I like to think that there is a bigger reason, that in the end we will find some good news."