LA Times Review of “MOSUL”
The feature documentary film MOSUL follows Iraqi journalist Ali Maula from Baghdad to Mosul, as he encounters members of various Iraqi factions that have united against ISIS, which had been occupying the second largest city in Iraq. In MOSUL, Maula also interviews members of ISIS, and one of their detainees. The Los Angeles Times published a review of MOSUL shortly after the movie’s April premiere and LA release.
Written by film critic Michael Rechtshaffen, this review praised MOSUL as an “up-close-and-personal examination” that humanizes the Iraqi conflict in a thought-provoking manner. In addition to crediting MOSUL’s striking images and fascinating characters, Mr. Rechtshaffen points to the film’s ability to outline the history of instability throughout the region with considerable expertise and nuance. He also praises director Dan Gabriel’s approach to using moving images to tell a larger story. For example, he notes, Mr. Gabriel adroitly transforms a cloud of black smoke that pours from barrels of sulfur ignited by ISIS fighters, into an apt metaphor for the Iraq region as a whole.
