PARK CITY, Utah -- In a dusty corner of the airless end-stage restaurant at the al-Hamra Hotel in Baghdad (the spaghetti Bolognese was your safest bet), sitting on his bench each night, was the piano player, a cigarette with two inches of ash perched at the corner of his mouth, a glass of whiskey or beer always within reach.
He was funny-looking for an Iraqi. In a country of bearded men with close-cropped hair, the piano player, now 56, sported a thinning ponytail and snaggly, nicotine-shellacked teeth and he spoke English with an Italian accent. He played Chopin; he played Cole Porter. Sometimes he played them well, sometimes he just played. He maintained a rake's mournful eye for the ladies, a faded Lothario.
Samir Peter, "The Liberace of Baghdad," came to the Sundance Film Festival to help promote the film made by British journalist Sean McAllister, right.
(Jesse Grant -- Wireimage.com)
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You need to know: The Hamra, after the toppling of Saddam Hussein, was at first a journalists' hotel -- clean, simple rooms with balconies, endless cases of Bulgarian wine and Belgian beer, and best of all, a cool swimming pool, where everyone would gather in the toaster-warm evenings after deadlines. Most of the foreign press did not pay much attention to Samir Peter except maybe to stuff a wad of dirty blue dinars in his tip jar or send over a drink and wonder: What was a piano player doing in a war zone?
A British journalist answered the question. Sean McAllister, with his BBC credentials, had come to Iraq to research a film on the trial of Hussein. Instead, he made a revealing heartache of a documentary about Samir Peter, called "The Liberace of Baghdad," which premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival. The film is handmade, vérité, rough; the sound quality stinks, but the main character's sublime.
And the sweet part of the story: McAllister helped fulfill Samir's wish. He got him out of Iraq (at least for 40 days on a temporary visa) and here he is, like some alien from another planet, wearing a puffy parka and standing with his stooped shoulders before the audience at the premiere of his movie, answering questions from the crowd.
Samir (his first name is his professional name) didn't paint a rosy picture. Iraq, he feared, was getting worse by the day. Nobody safe; everyone armed, Samir included. "He was never kidnapped," Samir boasted to the audience of his eight months with McAllister, whom he now calls "my brother." (This is no small point. Several journalists shown in the film later got grabbed; it was the time of kidnappings and beheadings.) Finally, Samir said, "I cannot protect you, Sean. You must go home."
The Americans got rid of Hussein, which was good, Samir says (though he does not understand why they just didn't execute him on the spot). But the U.S. troops face a cunning, strong resistance; the occupiers made many mistakes, and the rebuilding has been so slow, Samir says, and nobody has any work or money. He sounds depressed, his tobacco-rough voice a croak. And if the Americans pull out? he is asked. "It's going to be a civil war. It will never end."
In its way, the documentary is a bleak buddy movie, starring the odd couple Samir & Sean, a carton of smokes, a river of whiskey, with Samir behind the wheel of his rattletrap sedan or at the piano in what McAllister calls "a relationship film." In one touching moment, Samir plays his composition, from the first Gulf War, called "The Bombardment of Baghdad," which he wrote during the aerial attacks in 1991.
We learn that Samir, classically trained in Hungary and Italy, was the piano man at the Sheraton during the Hussein regime. He made good money, performed concerts. But he was also harassed by state security forces; he played jazz, which was uncool, too Western. He confesses that he is a hopeless womanizer; his wife, a doctor, had moved to the United States years ago. "She became to me like a piece of furniture," he confesses. He would like to see her again though, he says later in an interview. She is dying of cancer.
During the film, Sean and Samir visit the scene of car bombings, one at Samir's church (he's part of the small Christian community in Iraq), and another where Iraqis had gathered to look for work in the nascent police forces. They open the door to a van to look at the dead, shattered, yellowing bodies, and later Samir tells Sean he imagines himself lying under a bloody sheet someday soon. "Oh, look, this is Samir, poor guy," he tells the camera, almost weeping. "Who cares for us?"
The woman who lives next door to Samir is shot dead. A rocket-propelled grenade barely misses Samir's house. He moves into the basement at the Hamra, his window covered with bricks. Journalists begin to scatter from the hotel; South African mercenaries, hired as bodyguards for the Western contractors, move in. The film sweats paranoia.
There is a scene in the movie when Sean and Samir go back to his house, and as they talk with Samir's grown daughter, Sahar, the audience learns that she misses Hussein. "He is a rare kind of man," she says. "I love him." And Samir barks, "Shut up, you idiots. This is going on the BBC!"
The mood gets darker. Sean keeps filming. Samir looks like death warmed over, drinking heavily, chain-smoking. "My heart is full of sorrows," he says. Still, he prays, he takes care of Sean. He just wants to get out of Iraq, but it is so dangerous to travel by highway to Jordan, so hard to get a visa. And then there is Sean, who is actually putting Samir's life in danger. To be driving a Westerner around Baghdad with a digital camera? Samir constantly worries they will both be killed and it will be his fault.
After the premiere ends, and the questions are answered, Samir is asked to sing. "This is a love song," he announces, and does a bar or two from an Italian opera. Then: "You must buy my CD! Come on, Sean, sell it to them!"
Samir hopes to be granted permanent immigrant status in the United States. He's unemployed, living in Jordan, and his visa application, a year in the works, is still pending. Later on this film festival night, Samir plays at a party for "The Liberace of Baghdad" on Park City's boisterous Main Street. Some people crowd around the piano; a woman who doesn't appreciate Samir's artistry wonders aloud when he'll stop. Samir plays "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."
