Lessons of Darkness
International Arthouse
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54m
Directed by Werner Herzog | 54 mins | 1992
Saddam Hussein ordered the withdrawal from Kuwait at the end of February, 1991, bringing the Gulf War to a nominal close—but the Iraqi troops would wreak a trail of destruction in their retreat: implementing a scorched earth policy, they set fire to around 75 percent of Kuwait’s oil wells. Before the toxic flames were finally extinguished in November, Herzog captured the images of the ravaged landscape that comprise this apocalyptic cine-poem.
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