Iraq’s Invisible Beauty review – a photographer’s eye on a vanished history | Film

Known as “the father of Iraqi photography”, Latif al-Ani began his career in the 1950s while employed by the British-run Iraq Petroleum Company. Working for its in-house publication, al-Ani fixed his lens on a nation in transition; as his camera took in the new industrial infrastructures and a robust cosmopolitan culture, the 1958 Iraqi military coup occurred, the first of many regime changes that would for ever alter the look of the country.

Now in his late 80s, al-Ani returns to some of the locations from his photographs of a bygone Iraq for Sahim Omar Kalifa and Jurgen Buedts’s documentary. During his time at the ministry of culture and his post as the official photographer for various presidents – including Saddam Hussein – his body of work was journalistic, but it also carries significant aesthetic and archival value. After an endless series of wars and civil conflicts, large numbers of the architectural landmarks he captured are now in ruins. They live on only in al-Ani’s negatives, many of which were destroyed during the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.

While his career has inevitably been tied up with Iraq’s political turbulence, al-Ani proved unwilling to examine the social context of his photographs, a deceptively neutral position that could have been probed more by the film-makers. The decision to cast a voiceover actor to narrate, in English, from al-Ani’s perspective adds a possibly unnecessary flourish to an already fascinating life story. The use of a sentimental song in French to bookend the film also feels out of place, especially as al-Ani speaks at length about his refusal to leave for the west. While the film beautifully documents an Iraq that no longer exists, its examination of al-Ani’s legacy remains somewhat surface-level.

Known as “the father of Iraqi photography”, Latif al-Ani began his career in the 1950s while employed by the British-run Iraq Petroleum Company. Working for its in-house publication, al-Ani fixed his lens on a nation in transition; as his camera took in the new industrial infrastructures and a robust cosmopolitan culture, the 1958 Iraqi military coup occurred, the first of many regime changes that would for ever alter the look of the country.

Now in his late 80s, al-Ani returns to some of the locations from his photographs of a bygone Iraq for Sahim Omar Kalifa and Jurgen Buedts’s documentary. During his time at the ministry of culture and his post as the official photographer for various presidents – including Saddam Hussein – his body of work was journalistic, but it also carries significant aesthetic and archival value. After an endless series of wars and civil conflicts, large numbers of the architectural landmarks he captured are now in ruins. They live on only in al-Ani’s negatives, many of which were destroyed during the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.

While his career has inevitably been tied up with Iraq’s political turbulence, al-Ani proved unwilling to examine the social context of his photographs, a deceptively neutral position that could have been probed more by the film-makers. The decision to cast a voiceover actor to narrate, in English, from al-Ani’s perspective adds a possibly unnecessary flourish to an already fascinating life story. The use of a sentimental song in French to bookend the film also feels out of place, especially as al-Ani speaks at length about his refusal to leave for the west. While the film beautifully documents an Iraq that no longer exists, its examination of al-Ani’s legacy remains somewhat surface-level.