(Since Grace is Gone is now screening in limited release, we're re-publishing James' review from the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.)

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
(It is sweet and decorous to die for one's country.)

-- Horace

Sure, but try explaining that to someone who's lost a loved one in war; it may be sweet and decorous to die for one's country, but how is that consolation to the people left behind? How do you explain that kind of loss to yourself? How do you explain that kind of loss to children? And moving from the abstract to the concrete, as Stanley Phillips (John Cusack) has to ask himself, how can he explain to his daughters Heidi (Shélan O'Keefe) and Dawn (Gracie Bednarczyk) that their mom -- wife, mother, friend, U.S. Army staff sergeant -- isn't coming back to them because she's died in Iraq?

Well, for Stanley, the answer to that is simple: You don't. At least not right away. You stall for a few minutes. And then you stall for an hour. And then you stall a little more and ask the kids what they'd like to do while driving around Minnesota's chain restaurants and strip malls, trying desperately to think of how to tell them. And when Dawn says she wants to go to Enchanted Gardens -- a Florida fun park -- Stanley puts the family on the highway and heads South, because doing something stupid is invariably easier than doing something right.

Last November, when I brought news about Phil Donahue's directorial debut as a documentary filmmaker, there wasn't much known. We learned that it was focused on a paralyzed Iraq War vet named Tomas Young, that Donahue was financing it himself and that any profits would go to charity and to Young, and that he still had a lot to do before the film would be finished. It seems to be done, though, now. The former talk show host has been screening the doc, which he co-directed with Ellen Spiro (Troop 1500), in his Manhattan apartment, for a number of acquisitions execs from various distributors.

The film now has a title: Body of War (which sounds to me a little too close to Lord of War). It also has newly confirmed controversial subject matter: it criticizes many Democratic leaders, including Hillary Clinton, for their support of the Iraq War. Reportedly only one Democrat, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, is okay in Donahue's book. Body of War will feature a soundtrack of new music from Eddie Vedder that he wrote specifically for the film. Contrary to what I had predicted, it does not feature Donahue on camera in Michael Moore fashion. Donahue is hoping for a wide theatrical release, though the execs seem to be more interested in a smaller scale. Already the film has been accepted to one of this fall's prestigious film festivals, though it isn't known which -- possibly either Toronto or Venice -- so we'll probably see how it is received publicly before we hear about any concrete distribution plans.

There is no single superior format when it comes to documenting an issue. Non-fiction films have the advantage over fiction films in that they can give either a general overview, often with a sense of omniscience, or they can give a specific, personal study. Occasionally they can even provide a combined method. On a subject like Iraq War vets, both formats are necessary and effective. I will say, however, that I often prefer the broader documentaries, because with the narrower single-subject take I'm left wondering about the many other individuals. With technological accessibility what it is today, perhaps every Iraq War vet could get their own documentary -- but would this be at all sensible?

If Vietnam was the first televised war and the Gulf War could be considered the first 24-hour coverage war (thanks to CNN), then the Iraq War might be called the most-first-hand-documented. Thanks to the more-immediate technologies of digital filmmaking, documentaries have been in abundance since the beginning of the conflict, giving us everything from ground-troop-shot films to quickly released looks at its aftermath. At this year's Tribeca Film Festival, films took us into battle alongside American soldiers (The War Tapes) and Iraqi insurgents (The Blood of My Brother) and brought us back home with the vets (When I Came Home; Home Front). Despite an overload of these documentaries, there still can't be enough of them, as they provide us with countless points of view and an immeasurable acquaintance with the reality of the ins and outs of the war.

Patricia Foulkrod's The Ground Truth: After the Killing Ends, which screened at this year's Sundance Film Festival, could be considered just another film about the homecoming of U.S. troops and their difficult return to civilian life, but despite its sharing two faces with When I Came Home (featured interviewees Paul Reickhoff and Herold Noel), the differences between the two films mark an apparent allowance for numerous looks into the subject matter. While covering Tribeca, I actually decided to skip the Iraqi vet pic Home Front, thinking it would be hard to handle too many similar films (it screened the same day as When I Came Home and The Blood of My Brother). Now I feel that there is no such thing as too many when it comes to understanding this or any war. It is the same reason that movies about WWII and Vietnam will continue to be made; the difference is that with documentaries, the immediacy of the truth seems to hit a little harder.

A few minutes into the new documentary, My Country, My Country, there's an astonishing scene in which an Iraqi clinician, Dr. Riyadh, talks his way into a heavily fortified Army barracks and is granted a meeting with some Army functionaries in order to vent his anger over the violence in Fallujah. This is 2004, shortly after the siege there, and immediately before the commencement of Iraq's first post-Baathist election, which will be conducted amidst raging confessional and ethnic violence. As we see in the film, some militia members even pledge to mow down voters en masse if they dare to stand out in the sun, waiting to dip their fingers into purple ink. Why Dr. Riyadh is granted a meeting with the Americans at such a high-tension moment is not clear; it may be because he happens to be a candidate for elective office or because he's being tailed by an American camera crew. What is clear is that in the short sit-down that follows, he shames his counterparts with terse, cut-and-dry language and inarguable statements. "This is not Vietnam," he pleads. "These people have no food, no blankets, and no roof...this is a process of mass killing." The marine sitting across from him, in bulging combat gear, immediately answers back with rehearsed, insulting religio-babble: "I've heard everything you've said and it touched me in my heart." In other words, meeting adjourned.

Filming is finished for the indie Grace is Gone, which stars John Cusack, and I'm hoping it will find distribution easier than its helmer's previous project. The drama is the directorial debut of writer James C. Strouse, who last penned Steve Buscemi's Lonesome Jim. That film took two years from its shoot to its release date, and then it was barely seen (I think its hilarious, but others seem to disagree). Obviously Cusack is a bigger draw than Casey Affleck, but the former has been in some little films that were also ignored at the box office, so we'll have to wait and see. One thing that is worrisome is that Cusack is described as playing 180 degrees from what audiences are used to. Also, the story sounds pretty dreary. Cusack plays a man whose wife dies in the Iraq War, prompting him to take his daughters on a road trip while delaying telling them about their mother's death. What I'm picturing, and it probably isn't fair to the film, is Cusack's character from Being John Malkovich and the second act of Lolita -- minus the whole incestuous, statutory-rape part, that is.

Cusack took on the role because of his politics: He doesn't agree with the government ban on media coverage of the returning remains of killed soldiers, and he used his belief as motivation in the making of the film. Well, as much as I'm looking forward to this film, I hope that the actor's seriousness is soon over with and he can think about making a Grosse Pointe Blank sequel already.