The New York Times
June 13, 1997
Waco: The Rules of Engagement
Film Review
By Stephen Holden
 An atmosphere of stomach-clenching dread suffuses
William Gazecki's grim documentary film, "Waco: The Rules of Engagement."
This methodical indictment of the U.S. government's siege of the Branch
Davidian compound near Waco, Texas four years ago has awful lessons to
teach about governmental hubris and how a deliberate failure to communicate
can have catastrophic consequences.
That siege left 4 federal agents and 76 members of the Branch Davidian
sect dead. Most of those who perished were incinerated in a fire that
destroyed the Mount Carmel compound on April 19, 1993.
Among the film's most unsettling images are lingering close-ups of the
charred bodies of women and children who died in the inferno.
In the official version of what happened, disseminated through the media,
the branch Davidians were a dangerous trigger-happy cult and their leader,
David Koresh, was a Jim Jones- like madman who at the last minute incited
his flock to commit mass suicide.
But the film tells a different story. Taped interviews with the survivors
and a replaying of the government's tape of the negotiations between the
FBI and Koresh make a strong case for seeing the killing of the federal
agents as an act of self-defense against an armed government assault.
Once federal blood had been shed, the movie says, the government decided
to move in for the kill.
 The most damning evidence against the FBI, which
took over the case from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, is
found on heat-sensitive infrared videos shot by the FBI from an aircraft
flying over the compound. In the film, technological experts testify that
strange flashes on the video almost certainly came from automatic gunfire
directed at the compound from government tanks. This contradicts the FBI's
insistence that during the entire 51-day siege, federal forces never fired
a shot.
The visual evidence also suggests that a tank ran over the body of one
or more sect members and that gunfire from federal troops ignited (perhaps
deliberately) the highly flammable teargas that had been pumped into the
building.
How persuasive is the evidence? It depends on how much you trust technological
expertise. Infrared photography measures only heat. It doesn't show clearly
defined images of people, places, and things. Reconstructing events from
such pictures is a matter of educated inference and guesswork.
Given the scope of the tragedy being investigated, "Waco" is
remarkable for its lack of overt passion. The surviving Branch Davidians
who lost loved ones in the siege have heartbreaking stories to tell, but
the film doesn't dwell on them. Instead of appealing directly to the emotions,
the film maintains the detached, scholarly tone of a courtroom inquiry.
Excerpts from congressional testimony are woven together with interviews
and extensive television coverage of the siege into a plodding (sometimes
exhausting) narrative that has the feel of a siege. But the images of
the final fire are as horrifying as newsreels of war-torn Beirut.
These Branch Davidians were not the insane cult that the government painted.
A religious sect spun off from the Seventh-day Adventist Church, it took
its eschatology from the Book of Revelation. And its leader did not present
himself as a messiah but as a prophet. Allegations of child abuse against
Koresh, the film insists, need to be evaluated in the context of the church's
doctrines that its leader should beget 24 children who would one day become
church elders.
 Although the history of the Branch Davidians includes some
incidents of violent internal strife, the sect's attitude toward the outside
world appeared to be defensive rather than belligerent.
The film puts the group's stockpiling of weapons in the context of the
local gun culture and notes that the buying and selling of guns is a profitable
business.
The movie suggests that the confrontation was conceived as a scheme by
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to improve its tarnished image
as a rogue agency: a tragedy that left 80 people dead began as a publicity
stunt.
WACO: The Rules of Engagement
Directed and Edited by William Gazecki
Directors of Photography, Mr.Gazecki and Rick Nyburg
Music by David Hamilton
Produced by Mr.Gazecki and Michael McNulty
Released by SomFord Entertainment.
Running time: 135 minutes
Rating: This film is not rated.
©1997 The New York Times |
