The Tenth Planet “A Single Life in Baghdad”

In post-war Baghdad, meeting the charming secretary, Kawkab, is a divine surprise. She shows the filmmaker around her favourite haunts. She gazes longingly at the women’s underwear in the shop windows, complaining that she has no-one to show them off to, talks about her life as a single woman and her ideal man. She flirts with the record seller, “I’m Kawkab (Arab for ‘planet’). There are nine planets in the universe and I’m the tenth!” As our taxi passes another vehicle, she gives the warning: “Americans! Head down!” The conversations, at the hairdresser’s or in her family, take on a more serious tone, when a woman calls out to the filmmaker, “Bush did not do a good job.”