TV is the New Reading

‘American Herro’

Documentary is flawed, but worth a look

First and foremost, I enjoyed the tie-ins between Minot and world events. I enjoyed the cozy conversation among family friends and I liked the American story of hard work and perseverance leading to the life lived by foreign relations worker Herro Mustafa, the subject of Kirk Roos’ documentary “American Herro.”

Herro is a woman who grew up in the Midwest, a child of immigrants fleeing a difficult life both in Iraq and in Iran. Zion Lutheran Church sponsored them as refugees in the United States in 1976, when they moved to Minot, where Herro grew up.

The film traced Herro’s upbringing through to her graduation. She set her sights on an international stage, joining the U.S. Foreign Service in 1999, working as part of the transitional government in Iraq, and as special adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She now serves as senior Middle East adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.

The narrative thread is a bit elusive. Roos has a capable grasp of visuals, but the film seems a bit haphazard, with images from the ’70s and conversations with the folks who sponsored and welcomed the Mustafa family, the conditions they experienced, and then some of Herro’s work with the State Department, the fall of Saddam Hussein, a conversation with her family, a sparse conversation with the filmmaker about growing up in Minot that launched into an overseas tour of the family’s roots in Iraq. It’s sort of chronological but not completely, which may be why it seems to jump about a bit.

I did enjoy the reflections of friends, family, colleagues and coworkers talking about their experiences with Herro. As the film progressed, however, I realized what was standing out to me was how much it was talking around her. It seemed a bit incidental, talking about, oh, say, how loud the family is when the cameras aren’t there, about neighbors’ experiences 30 years ago, about how life goes on in Washington, D.C., while Herro is overseas, returning to her childhood home in Minot and every (usually avoidable) instance in which the film-maker inserted himself into the narrative.

Every such moment represented, in my opinion, a missed opportunity to just pull back and let Herro talk about her own experiences -- and honestly, for her father, Abdul, to talk about his. He’d been a writer and a protestor of Saddam Hussein’s regime, part of why his family had to flee, and his remaining family was persecuted, interrogated as to his whereabouts. Abdul Mustafa published a newspaper in Iraq. He protested the use of chemical weapons in the Kurdish    region. The portion of his story Roos included was at least as compelling as his daughter’s.

Experiences

And that’s not to say her voice wasn’t heard. In returning to visit her parents’ relatives in Iraq, for example, Herro talked about meeting them and seeing her parents in them and feeling like she’d known them her whole life. Sharing their time, their hospitality, the fun and celebration of a dance, that was easily as  interesting as the work she’d done with the State Department -- itself a solid reflection of her father’s philo- sophy that hard work leads to success.

From an address to her high school class about following their dreams to a scholarship to George Washington University to her work as an experienced diplomat and speaker of eight languages, Herro was involved through her work with the transitional government in bringing Iraqi women into the political process and improving their economic situation. And just from the photos Roos included, she’s clearly had such a positive and wide-ranging impact making connections with people in her diplomatic work in a part of the world where we usually only hear the negative, I guess I’d have enjoyed hearing more about that as well.

In that this is the film we got, I can still recommend it, particularly to readers of this column. Minot audiences will enjoy a pleasant trip down Memory Lane reminiscing with neighbors and where they are now, what’s happened in their lives after Minot. It’s an interesting and informative piece, a snapshot of a life and a moment in history. As Secretary Rice shares in the film, the American experience is filled with  stories, and Herro Mustafa has a strong one to share.

All the more reason to tune in Tuesday night to enjoy the rebroadcast of “American Herro” at 9 p.m. on PBS.