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‘Atropia’ Review: Alia Shawkat Trains Troops Assigned to a Fake Iraqi Town in a Self-Reflexive War Comedy That Peters Out
Set in a fake town, Hailey Gates’ feature debut 'Atropia,' premiering at Sundance, has fun, insightful ideas, though it seldom expands on them.
It is utter chaos; limbs are flung helter-skelter as Iraqi villagers yell “Death to America!” These familiar tropes emanate from the modern war cinema playbook, from the soldiers having their suspicions immediately confirmed, down to the Orientalist music compositions, which hint towards an imagined conception of a place, rather than a feeling. It has logistics coordinators akin to assistant directors (June Carryl), a grizzled special effects head (Sal Lopez), a dialect coach (Tony Shawkat) and even executive military personnel who give orders from a boardroom (Tim Heidecker, Chloë Sevigny). In contrast to Fayruz’s borderline Method acting approach, the recent Arab immigrant Noor (Zahra Alzubaidi) simply goes through the motions in order to obtain a Green Card, just as the town’s numerous disabled and amputee actors seem happy enough to have been hired.
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