Standard Operating Procedure

2008
7.4| 1h57m| R| en| More Info
Released: 12 February 2008 Released
Producted By: Sony Pictures Classics
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.sonyclassics.com/standardoperatingprocedure/
Synopsis

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

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Reviews

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
Melanie Bouvet The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.
Cissy Évelyne It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
rsvp321 Too bad they don't illustrate the atrocities of the captured scum.I'm surprised Michael Moore's name isn't attached to this one.S1E1 was enough for me. Bail!
dan697 'Standard Operating Procedure' is a hard-hitting doc made by famed non-fiction American filmmaker Errol Morris. Morris has been making documentaries since the late 70s and has since become synonymous with the form of filmmaking. His latest film covers events that occurred in 2003 in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, which saw American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners in a number of humiliating and torturous ways.Morris' authorial stamp is made very clear on the film from early on through the use of talking head interviews and reconstructed footage. One of his more famous films, 'The Thin Blue Line', was actually rejected from consideration for the Oscar category of non-fiction film because it has too much reconstructed footage in it. The most important facet of the documentary, though, is the inclusion of a great number of photographs that depict all the heinous acts that took place in the prison – all taken by three of the soldiers in the prison of their own free will. In short, the photographs depict naked Iraqi men in sexually humiliating circumstances with the American soldiers smiling with their thumbs up right next to them. Other photographs include a dead Iraqi man in a body bag, a picture of a bloodied prisoner after being attacked by a dog and more.The photos not only exposed the whole scandal but they were hard evidence that it actually happened. This is something that's often spoken about in the documentary with people saying that the photographs are an objective representation of what happened and everything you need to know is in the frame. But this logic is then complicated when we discover that some photos have been cropped and manipulated. One interviewee even states that the photographs are taken out of context and you need more information to understand what the photo's representing. The whole idea of objectivity and representation seems to interestingly reflect the function of a documentary (to re/present 'reality') which is undoubtedly a sub-text Morris was going for. The big question, though, is why did these people take these incredibly condemning photographs of themselves?To be clear, this was a ridiculously stupid thing for the American soldiers to do – it's like a bank robber taking a picture of themselves robbing a bank. When you're actually watching the talking head interviews with the people that committed the acts you can't help but feel they're confused. They try to justify themselves saying that they were taking the pictures with the intent on exposing the mistreatment of these people, but it certainly didn't pan out that way. And the limp excuses for the thumbs up and smiles were 'I never know what to do with my hands in pictures' and 'When someone takes a photo, you smile, it's normal'. It's as if they don't understand the grand severity of the ethical injustices they've just committed, it's really incredible. Morris presents their shallow and ignorant defences on a plate, letting the viewer independently judge these people.There's quite a spread of interviewees throughout the documentary and it doesn't take long before you're able to distinguish who's smart, who's reliable, who's experienced and so on. One that stands out is Brent Pack who was in charge of going through the hundreds of photos and creating a timeline out of them. He is a seasoned, ex-Desert Storm field agent who, from experience, tells us that the ethics and rules during war time become 'fuzzy'. He explains that these soldiers were being shelled day in and day out whilst they witnessed fellow soldiers come back scarred from the horrors of war. The anxiety and frenzy of war clearly resulted in contempt towards anything Iraqi and Pack puts this forward as a sort of quasi-justification.But the real shock of this documentary has yet to be revealed. It comes in a short sequence nearing the end when pictures are showed on screen and Pack labels all of them either 'Criminal Activity' or 'Standard Operating Procedure' (or S.O.P.). Many of the pictures are identified as 'Criminal Activity' because they depict a soldier sexually humiliating a prisoner or something similar. However, there was one scenario in particular covered in the film about a prisoner that was told to stand up straight or else the wires that were tied to him would electrocute him. Except the wires had no electric current running through them, so this was deemed 'S.O.P.' – in other words 'legal' and 'just', because it was a means to extract information from a prisoner. This was just one instance of prisoner treatment that was deemed S.O.P. and it's a truly stunning revelation made by the film. It's further exacerbated by the fact that some of the prisoners weren't even terrorists, they were bakers or welders taken from their homes.The unethical acts committed by these people is the focal point of this film but I feel that Morris wants the headline to be that some of these things are actually permitted by the U.S. military. I can't help but feel that's the take-home truth from this documentary. Overall, this film really hits you in the jaw with some excruciatingly heavy subject matter but it's worth it by how well-crafted, expositional, and informative it is.My Rating: 7.9/10I have a bunch of other film/music reviews up here: https://somespiltmilk.wordpress.com/
poe426 According to attending physicians, I died in 2004 during a surgical procedure. Not long ("two or three minutes," I was told), but I was, technically and by legal definition, dead. But I'm stubborn (according to the woman I married), and I came back. Not long thereafter, I found myself flat on my face in a service station parking lot, thanks to something called "occult blood" that had built up in my system. Back to the hospital, where I spent five days in the Intensive Care Unit (two or three of those days in critical condition). Shortly after dodging that bullet, I developed kidney stones that left me writhing in agony in the hospital parking lot. Procedure number three. Then came The Biggie: chest pains that required quintuple bypass heart surgery. The foregoing, as one might very well guess, left me feeling a tad... weary of it all. I said so, aloud, and suddenly found myself handcuffed to a chair bolted to the floor in a holding cell. The next day, I was driven out of town to a run-down facility known hereabouts as "Cherry." I knew that something was wrong when (still handcuffed) I walked into the bathroom and found the walls, the sink and the floor covered with blood. It was a clear indication of things to come. There were fistfights (one of which came dangerously close to me where I lay, stitches still fresh, in bed one night) and beatings by both fellow inmates (sorry: "patients") and guards ("staff"). It was a harrowing experience that made the antics in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST seem tame by comparison. I was only there for two weeks, but I saw (and was appalled by) the way mental illness (even simple depression) was dealt with hereabouts. Watching STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE, I couldn't help but be reminded of my "time away." If and when our leaders straighten out the mess they've made elsewhere around the world, they might want to take a nice, long look at the homefront.
TheFluffyKnight In 2004 the media was full of accounts of the abuse, torture, and even murder of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison by Military Police. Photographs surfaced depicting prisoners naked and wearing cloth hoods, and being forced to masturbate, stand on boxes for fear of electrocution, and forming human pyramids. Twelve soldiers were convicted, and the commanding officer at the prison, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, was demoted to the rank of Colonel. Errol Morris' documentary Standard Operating Procedure attempts to examine the atmosphere surrounding the abuse, the people involved, and whether it was all down to a few "bad apples", or if it was reflective of the American military as a whole.Morris keeps his authorial influence to a minimum, instead allowing his subjects to speak for themselves. He has interviewed several of the soldiers involved, including Lynndie England, who can be seen in many of the photographs smiling, pointing, giving a thumbs up. She and the other soldiers interviewed describe, with remarkable candour, what it was like living in Abu Ghraib prison, their relationships with each other and the prisoners, and the events and tensions surrounding those incidents depicted in the photographs. It all paints a picture of the prison as a dark and stifling environment, one just waiting to bring out the worst in people.The real centrepiece of the film, though, are the photographs. Even four years after they dominated every front page and bulletin, they have lost none of their power to appal and disgust. Some, like the picture of a man forced to stand, arms outstretched, on a box with a cloth bag on his head, are surreal. Others, like a photograph of Sabrina Harman giving a thumbs up over a dead prisoner, are simply disturbing.And hovering above all of this are the OGA, or Other Government Agencies, an often used euphemism for the CIA. It was during the CIA-led interrogations that the most heinous of human rights infractions were most likely carried out. But there are no photographs of these incidents. Standard Operating Procedure raises the point that it is these individuals who should have received the full brunt of the punishment, but it was simpler to lay the blame on lower ranking officers like England and Harman.It is here that the main point of contention with Standard Operating Procedure arises. It is true that no one above the rank of Staff Sergeant was convicted. And it is true that this should not be the case, that those higher-ranking officers who let this abuse play out under their noses should be held accountable. But Morris tries to divert too much of the blame away from those who were convicted. While England, Harman and the others were just following orders and living in a deeply affecting environment, they are also human beings endowed with free will. They could have said no at any time, and just walked away.That Standard Operating Procedure raises these arguments means that it is worthy of our time. It presents the facts as perceived by those involved, never itself commenting or judging. It leaves that to us, so that we can make up our own minds. So that perhaps we can learn from the mistakes made by others, and prevent them from happening again.