Posted on 11/10/2002 2:57:48 PM PST by spycatcher
The daring documentarian
By Darroch Greer
Video Systems, Feb 1, 2002
Documentary maker Joel Soler is a patriotic Frenchman who does not take the blue, white, and red of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” for granted. With his small DV camera, Soler is taking on the brutal oppressors of the world — Hitler, Hussein, and bin Laden — single-handedly going where few Westerners dare to tread, and exposing the deranged designs of these enemies of freedom.
This may sound a bit like a comic book, but Soler's story has plenty of action, intrigue, and humor. A former television producer in France, Soler made a documentary, Uncle Saddam, in which he infiltrated Saddam Hussein's inner circle. Under the pretext of making a documentary about the sanctions on Iraq, he interviewed family members, government employees, and the architects and designers of Hussein's megalomaniac world. Soler has witnessed and filmed things that few Westerners — or even Iraqis — have seen.
When Uncle Saddam received limited theatrical release in September 2000, Soler was targeted with death threats. They have still not abated, and Soler could receive more when HBO/Cinemax airs the documentary in July. Soler is undaunted, however. He had planned to do his next piece on Osama bin Laden, but couldn't stir up any interest. Heeding the advice of friends, he postponed production of the bin Laden film and began production on Uncle Adolf instead. His last day of shooting was scheduled for September 11, when he was to interview the notorious documentary filmmaker of the Third Reich, Leni Riefenstahl. In her living room, as they watched the unfolding tragedy of the World Trade Center on television together, Soler vowed to switch production gears back to bin Laden and never take anyone's advice about what to film again. Since then, after beatings, jailings, and attempts on his life, Soler has remained as determined as ever to finish the project.
VS: You shot Uncle Saddam with Hi8? Is that because it was the smallest camera you had?
Soler: Yeah. There is one palace I wanted to shoot in the middle of Baghdad. But in Iraq, anyone who shoots a palace with a camera, it's a death sentence. The military is allowed to shoot you on the spot, so you'd better have a small camera and be very discreet. Too big? Pow!
VS: Presumably you are always using some form of deception or another. What's another example?
Soler: Uncle Adolf is really about Adolf [Hitler]'s nephew, so it's really Uncle Adolf. His name is Alex Adolf Hitler, but he changed his name, and actually he is working for the American government. I knocked at his door and I became friends with him without him knowing that I knew who he was. After three months I told him. It was weird, because after three months I kind of liked him.
VS: What was the pretext for your knocking on his door?
Soler: I fell down on my Rollerblades and I asked for help. … Everytime I visited him I had a spy camera on me so I recorded everything, all the meetings I had. After I fell down, I came back to him with chocolates to thank him. After three months, I said, ‘Let's go see [Broadway show] The Producers, it's about Hitler.’ He didn't know [I knew], but I wanted him to speak about Hitler. I was planning to have a camera and arrange for him to meet the actor [who played] Hitler. After I thought, ‘OK, it's too much, it's going too far,’ and I felt really bad. So one night I said, ‘Listen, I have to tell you something.’ I told him I was recording everything and it was such a difficult moment. He told me, ‘OK, you do it. You do whatever you feel your conscience [allows you to] do, but I ask you one thing. Just protect me, protect my face. I don't want to be in danger. Just protect my face and I will give you another interview.’ And I said, ‘Deal.’
VS: What kind of spy camera did you use and how were you able to frame it?
Soler: It was a small spy camera with a very wide-angle lens. But it wasn't very convenient, because when I saw another Hitler cousin in Austria, the one who was claiming the rights for Mein Kampf, he opened the door and said, ‘You have a spy camera!’ Right away! I was [speechless]!
VS: What kind of camera do you normally use?
Soler: It was a Canon XL1. It's easy. When I was in Yemen to visit the bin Laden family, you can go around. People don't know if it's professional.
VS: When did you first want to make a documentary on bin Laden?
Soler: After I sold part of [Uncle Saddam] to ABC PrimeTime and MSNBC [The News] with Brian Williams [in 2000] I thought, ‘Now what? What am I going to do with my life?’ I'd been interested in bin Laden and I started to do some research, and I'd tell my friends and people in the entertainment industry, ‘Hey, I'm going to go to Afghanistan,’ and everybody told me, ‘No, you're crazy.’ I talked to the people at HBO — I wanted to go from Islamabad, Pakistan, to Kabul on Rollerblades. And they looked at me, ‘Kabul? Who cares?’ It was a year ago, and nobody cared about Afghanistan. …
So I started Uncle Adolf, having still in mind to do something on bin Laden, and September 11 was my last day of shooting. So September 11, 2001, I went to Leni Riefenstahl's house. Her son opened the door and he told me, ‘It's the end of the world!’ And I didn't know about September 11, you know. I said, ‘What?’ ‘Yes! It's the end of the world! Come in, come in! We have to watch TV. It's the end of the world!’ And I started to panic and at that time the towers were still up, and Leni Riefenstahl came out in a bathrobe, and she was watching TV with her son and me and my friend, and she was devastated. Me too! And we watched the towers falling together. … They started to put images on CNN of Afghanistan and link the thing to bin Laden, and I thought, ‘I hate you people who told me not to go!’ After September 11, I decided, ‘I have to go to do this documentary on bin Laden, there is no way I am not.’
VS: Was it difficult shooting in volatile territory?
Soler: I went to southern Yemen, where I was arrested in front of the house of Osama's father-in-law. … I had 15 military guys coming out of the house surrounding me with Kalashnikovs. The driver/translator said, ‘He's a tourist!’ ‘Yeah, I'm a tourist.’ I was arrested. They thought I was CIA taking pictures of the place to bomb the place. The first hour when I was arrested it was pretty tough. … They transferred me to a hotel — a shitty one, but a hotel — and they put two guards in front of the room, and they took my passport, of course. I wasn't allowed to make any phone calls. I didn't know what was next. The day after, they transferred me to the capital and deported me.
VS: For Paris?
Soler: For Lebanon, actually, where I got in trouble, too. I had the number of one brother and one sister in Lebanon, and I called them saying I would come. I had my camera with me, and when I arrived at the building I went to another building [across the street] and filmed the front, so it's not like I was on the property. And two guys came and they said ‘police.’ And they didn't really speak English or French. I said, ‘Fine.’ In Lebanon I'm friends with the niece of the former president and I have great contacts there, and I had my papers in order and I was allowed to be there as a journalist. So they told me, ‘Give me the tape!’ I said, ‘No! If you are the police we go to the police station together. I have a permit as a journalist here, and I'm not going to give you the tape.’
The guy grabbed me by the hair and two guys took me down and they dragged my body [100ft.] and they beat me. They took the tape, and they took the Canon XL1 and they threw it away.
It's a big deal to be beaten in Lebanon by the bin Laden family. They were bin Laden bodyguards, actually. The minister of information in Lebanon received me and said, ‘We apologize.’ Then a foreign colonel was in charge of the case, so I went to see him. It was like in a movie. He told me, ‘We're going to arrest the guy [who beat you].’ So I went there to recognize the guy, so they were arrested. The colonel said, ‘What do you want? We don't want you to make a big deal out of it. What do you want?’ I said, ‘What I want is my tape from when I filmed the building, and I want an official apology from the family.’ The day after I went to see him, he said, ‘OK, this is the tape.’ So I said, ‘When are the bin Ladens going to apologize?’ He said, ‘OK, I apologize. I'm really sorry for what happened.’
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Darroch Greer is a documentary filmmaker and historian, currently completing a film on hunger in America called Time of Hunger. He writes, produces, and directs documentaries for PBS, Discovery Channel, The History Channel, and VH1.
Click on Uncle Saddam in the keywords of this FR thread for more articles.
CNN's Paula Zahn seemed to try to play up the humor in the film too.
The second half is darker.
I saw this 2 years ago. I don't have cable or I would be watching it again.
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