Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Baghdad Messi" is an 18-minute live action short film from 2012, so this one has its 4'5th anniversary this year. Written and directed by Sahim Omar Kalifa, it is still his most known work today because of the massive awards attention it received and it needs to be said that as the title already implies, it is in the Arabic language, so if you are from the western world, then you should get a good set of subtitles. This is the story of a young boy and his friends who are all Messi fans and it is the night of the Champions League final between Barcelona and Cristiano Ronaldo's Manchester, so the Messi/CR7 rivalry is references here too and it's been going on until today. But there is already a darker side to the story. The protagonist only has one leg, probably lost the other on a land mine, and the other kids don't want to play football with him anymore. Unless he gets going and repairs the TV set, so they can all watch the final. So the boy and his father go on a dangerous trip to have it repaired as Baghdad really isn't a safe place. And tragedy ensues. What I found just as depressing as the dad's fate (is he really dying? his gunshot wound did not seem too serious) was how the other kids acted when he brought the TV. They never cared for the boy and they also did not even recognize when his mother pulled him away while they were watching the match. At best he is tolerated by the others, mostly because of the injury I guess, but I don't see anything resembling friendship there. Overall a good watch and maybe the only reason it did not get in at the Oscars is that football (in the sense of soccer) is just nowhere near as big in America as it is here in Europe as normally the combination of modern culture and the less civilized world are a mix of two components they love going for, even as winners occasionally. But they didn't this time and it is fine because it does not reduce the film's convincing quality. Closer to a ****/***** than to a **/*****. I recommend the watch. Go check it out.
