Review of Standard Operating Procedure (2008) by Chris Z — 03 Jan 2011

"When you see a picture, you don't see outside the frame." Errol Morris's laser-like focus was intriguing here. This is classic Morris, building a fascinating documentary out of pure interviews, with a mix of actual photos and re-enactment.

But what's unique here is that this is less a documentary about Abu Ghraib or the broader story of 'enhanced interrogation' and torture: this is truly a documentary about photographs, and the story those photographs tell, and the bigger story that they hide.

It's a movie that while you're watching, you bemoan the really narrow focus: it does not discuss any broader history really, gives no larger context, provides no discussion of the story's impact or what similar stories played out in many other prisons.

But by the end, when you find is not a story about torture at all. It is a story about the reality and the hidden reality in a photograph, of the failures and weaknesses of photos themselves even as they provide profoundly crucial.

Abu Ghraib wouldn't be seared in the world's imagination without these photographs. But by the same token, Errol Morris's argument is also devastating: these photographs and the story we imagine behind them is not revelatory at all, it is more cover-up and obfuscation than anything.

The narrow scope of this film is equally as imprisoning as the photos: they are only a glimpse, and the stories we invent to fabricate a reality out of those photos are our own historical prison. Fascinating, and well-worth watching the extra features.