ATROPIA

In the highly ingenious and Sundance-winner Atropia by Hailey Gates, a movie set is transformed into a simulated war-stricken land in order to enhance the training of the American soldiers before being sent out to the hellhole of Iraq. The romance developed between Fayruz, the star of the “cast,” and a veteran playing the role of an insurgent, puts at risk both the ambitions of the former and the entire endeavor: a comic love story, wearing the suit of a political satire, that springs right out the heart of an American-made absurdism. “In the Nevada desert sits a fake Middle Eastern town built by the U.S. military during the Iraq War, where actors play locals and soldiers train for raids, weddings turned violent, chemical attacks, etc. The film follows a veteran performer who takes her role seriously: she wants authenticity and the best parts while her colleagues treat it as just another gig. The details are grotesque: fog machines standing in for IEDs, Glade manufacturing scents to mimic spiced tea and burning flesh, actors cycling through three-week stints always in character. Gates collects these absurdities until the laugh curdles, until comes the recognition that there is no ‘as if’ here, that rehearsal is not a buffer but a pipeline, that the grammar of simulation quickly hardens into the grammar of Empire and policy” (Myriam Ben Salah).