THIS AIN'T NO HEARTLAND: AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDREAS HORVATH

As the war in Iraq raged, Andreas Horvath wondered what people in the United States were thinking. So he flew from his home in Salzburg, Austria to the American Midwest, plopped himself down in a cornfield and turned his video camera to the people and places of rural Middle America. From this often-misunderstood region of the country, Horvath shows us what the title of his film spells out: This Ain't No Heartland. His pursuit of opinions about the war only raises more questions in this 105-minute, color documentary (2004) that weaves together interviews and images exposing as much an insularity and ignorance among the people there as their courtesy and kindness for this curious and sensitive foreigner.

In several phone conversations and e-mails, from May to October, 2004, from his home in Salzburg, Andreas talked to me about This Ain't No Heartland.

Why did you want to make this film?

On the Inauguration Day of "President" Bush, 1 condoled with my American friends via e-mail. This was a joke, of course. I had no way of knowing just how bad it would still get. There are a lot of dubious things going on in connection with the so-called "war on terror," but the invasion of Iraq was just scandalous beyond comparison. While every American casualty is meticulously recorded, there are only rough estimates for the Iraqi side, but the Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA) in October 2003 listed up to 15,000 killed Iraqis, about 4,000 of whom were innocent civilians. These are figures for the time until "major combat operations" had been declared over, so are obviously not counting what happened since. And the reasons? Remember Powell's "glorious" multimedia presentation before the UN Security Council? Ambiguous satellite pictures and all the "proof of deadly Weapons of Mass Destruction condensed in one little test tube. It was ridiculous. In Europe, most people felt that the decision to go to war with Iraq was crazy, would cause a wildfire in the whole region and would increase terrorism worldwide. Look at where we are now. Closer to the elections, more and more people in America finally come out and raise critical opinions. But after John Kerry's mantralike accusations during the TV debates, I have to ask, where was he two years ago? Where was the critical media? Where were all these people then? 1 acknowledge that there were demonstrations, but contrary to the rest of the world, the vast majority in America supported this war. I wanted to find out why.