BY ISAAC HAN

In print | Published April 16, 2009

Last Friday at LPAC, the Film and Media Studies Department and War News Radio hosted Ellen Spiro and her documentary “Body of War.” “Body of War” is a documentary co-directed by Spiro and Phil Donahue that chronicles the story of Iraq-war veteran Tomas Young as he deals with his disability. After only five days in Iraq, Young suffered a shot through his collarbone and spine, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. The film juxtaposes the story of his life as a disabled person with the series of decisions that led to the war in Iraq.

The effectiveness of the documentary lies in how personal and revealing Young’s story is. In describing the message of the film, Hansi Lo Wang ’09, a senior producer and co-anchor at War News Radio, said, “[Body of War] forces you as an audience member to appreciate what it means when you say ‘let’s go to war.’ [Young’s story] is what can happen.” The way that Young’s disability is portrayed in the film is a powerful anti-war argument in itself. In the scene when he talks to a congregation at a Presbyterian Church, Young has to stop at certain intervals to just catch his breath or to let the pain that he experiences pass before moving on with his talk. Through these pauses, the viewer really gets a sense of the pain that Young experiences as a result of the war.

While the horrors of Young’ disability may earn him sympathy, it’s Young’s sense of humor that really makes him a likable person that the viewer can care about. During the Q&A portion after the screening, Ellen Spiro remarked about how great a sense of humor Young had even with his disability. She recalled that Young would crack joke after joke during her time with him throughout the filming process. It’s incredible to see, over the course of the film, that Young’s humor is not lost. During a scene when he has to manually go to the bathroom in a van with the help of his mom (a process which I will not describe here lest you get too grossed out to finish reading this article), Young doesn’t miss the opportunity to make a sarcastic joke when his mom messes up. According to Spiro, it’s this sense of humor that helps him to deal with his disability and for the viewer, it’s this sense of humor that helps us to relate to him.

In portraying Tomas Young, the film has a devastating personal touch. Patricia White, the chief organizer of the event, said about Spiro’s film, “I think that the personal aspect for me was amazing. She had a very charismatic character. She obviously had a great relationship with him, and I thought that [the film] was a really interesting portrait of disability.” The personal touch that makes the film so touching also works in great contrast with the C-SPAN footage of the Senate debating going to war and former-President George Bush talking about how the real enemy is Iraq, something we now know is not true. The difficulties that Young faces juxtaposed with the politicians voting for the war comments ironically and effectively against the necessity of going to war in Iraq. At the beginning of the film, Young’s long ritual of dressing his paralyzed legs and struggling is intercut with the votes of “yea” to the resolution to go war. This intercutting suggests that the loss that Young experiences on a day-to-day basis fails to be justified by the government and Young’s losses are unfortunately and tragically for naught.

With “Body of War,” Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue have made an important film about the pitfalls and unfortunate consequences of going to war, especially if the war is based on faulty bits of intelligence. The most touching scene in the film is when Young visits Senator Robert Byrd, a staunch opponent of the war. During this scene, Senator Byrd tells Young that he had the people in mind when he decided to vote against the war. He tells Young that he could not be comfortable with sending people with families and friends into war where they could lose their lives and dignities as Young did. “Body of War” is a powerful documentary that helps us question the validity of war and realize the unfortunate consequences that arise from the act of war.

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