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Iraqi civilians injured by bombs. Wounded American soldiers. Those are images that Americans typically don't see on the news. Right now, however, they are images appearing in two different -- very different -- documentaries, each of which shows us aspects of the war in Iraq rarely portrayed in mainstream media. One is, of course, "Fahrenheit 9/11," the documentary by Michael Moore that has the nation buzzing; the other is Jehane Noujaim's documentary about Al-Jazeera journalists, "Control Room."

For Moore, the footage of the human cost of war is one piece of a wide-ranging pastiche of images. Moore employs everything from the serious footage of the wounded to pop culture references, from the emotional story of Lila Lipscomb (who lost her son in Iraq) to his own sarcastic voiceovers, all to further his goal of getting George W. Bush out of office.

And while it's too soon to know whether or not he'll achieve that ultimate goal at the polls, Moore has certainly already had amazing success at the box office. "Fahrenheit 9/11" is the first documentary ever to be the number one film at the box office its opening weekend. It accomplished this feat by handily beating the number two film, despite the fact that it opened on only a third of the screens as the other.

What's caused such a frenzy of interest? In a time when the Democratic contender for next President is the oh-so-Presidential and serious John Kerry, Moore provides a razzmatazz and fighting spirit that lefties aren't seeing from the Democratic party. And, with Howard Dean knocked out of the race after a selected media clip made him look foolish, there's a bit of a zingy thrill seeing that happen to the other side. Over, and over, and over.

But it's not only the clips that laugh at the Bush administration that people are responding to. They're also responding to the quiet moments, such as an eloquent memorial to the attack on the World Trade Center -- a blank screen, with the sounds of the crash, followed gradually by scenes of people reacting, shocked or crying, in the streets. We see papers floating in the air, and posters of the missing. And oh, the heartbreak is there again, so close.

Or the images of people injured in the war. Although they do not last a long time on the screen, they're affecting to people who have not seen these types of images for this war.

These same types of images play an important part in "Control Room," a documentary about Al-Jazeera journalists which opened to much less fanfare on May 21, 2004, in New York, and which has opened in other theaters since then. Al-Jazeera has been criticized in the West as being inflammatory for -- among other decisions -- showing graphic footage of war victims. But, as one of the journalists explained in "Control Room," their goal in showing the images was to "let people understand that this is a war where people are dying. It's not a clean war. It's a messy war."

That's a sentiment that I suspect Michael Moore would be comfortable with, and indeed, the journalists of Al-Jazeera that we see in "Control Room" seem as if they'd be at home in an American journalism class. They do not deny that they have a viewpoint, but they feel it's unavoidable, describing the word objectivity as "a mirage." Samir Khader, an Al-Jazeera producer who is one of the main characters in "Control Room," proudly described Al-Jazeera as presenting "true journalism. The only true journalism in the world. Nothing else."

There are other interesting parallels with Moore's sentiments. At one point, the American media is described as "hijacked" because it is designed "to make the Americans feel that they're always under siege." Moore, too, mocks the color-coded system of security alarms and implies that they've been utilized more to keep people uneasy and fearful than for genuine information about security.

I wonder, though, what Khader thinks of Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." In "Control Room," there is a point where Khader berates one of his staff for arranging an interview with an activist. Khader felt that it was a bad -- and unworthy -- interview because the man so clearly had an axe to grind. The staff member protested that the activist had been speaking against his own country, clearly thinking that this was merit enough to have him as a guest on the show. Khader tensely explained that they wanted to book guests who were balanced, and could talk about both sides of an issue.

Certainly director Jehane Noujaim found multifaceted characters for her documentary. Of mixed Egyptian-American heritage, Noujaim went to Qatar shortly before the outbreak of the war to observe how it would be reported. While a variety of journalists appear on the screen, the bulk of the time is taken up with Khader; Captain Josh Rushing, the U.S. military press officer at CENTCOM; and Hassan Ibrahim, an Al-Jazeera journalist. Each provides a fascinating complexity.

Khader, as noted, is proud of the work that he does at Al-Jazeera, but he also hopes that someday his children can go to America. Rushing is not presented as a closed-minded, just-following-orders type, but instead a genuinely reflective person who both believes in what he and the United States are doing and is open-minded to learning from others. He freely admits that both Fox and Al-Jazeera are selective in the stories that they run, because he knows what it is that they're not running. He genuinely struggles to understand what Ibrahim tells him about how images from the Israeli-Palestinian situation are inextricably bound up in the Iraqi war, asking if the journalist would be willing to meet with him later to help him understand more. And for his part, Ibrahim, despite his cheerful scorn at statements from the administration of the United States, invites Rushing to come join him and his wife for dinner so that they can talk further.

The complexity of characters in "Control Room" is not present in "Fahrenheit 9/11." Moore has a specific agenda and mood he wants to get across, and he has obviously engineered his documentary towards that end. He himself is a constant presence -- if not on screen, then by way of voiceover.

Because Noujaim is working not so much towards agenda as observation, she can afford to allow her characters to be more complex. In a way, "Control Room" appears as a window into this world, allowing the viewer to see whatever passes in front of that window. But, as her own movie makes clear, the choice of what stories to show is itself an expression of viewpoint, even if a less blatant one than Moore's editorializing.

"Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Control Room" have many differences, in terms of technique, viewpoint, style. Though they both use the same type of unfamiliar and shocking footage of war injuries, the footage is used for different purposes -- in "Fahrenheit 9/11," to indict the actions of our government; in "Control Room," to better understand the Iraqis and the Al-Jazeera journalists.

But both films are effective in raising questions about what has happened in Iraq, and where we should go from here. Those are questions to which no movie can provide an answer -- even Moore's implied solution of a change in administration still only takes us so far -- but, surprisingly, I found my best hope in words from the cheerful cynic Hassan Ibrahim. When asked what could stop the United States, he replied, "The United States is going to stop the United States. I have absolute confidence in the United States Constitution, and I have absolute confidence in the American people."

That confidence will be justified if the American public truly engages in the vigorous debate that these two movies can inspire.

Official site for "Fahrenheit 9/11" | IMDb site for "Fahrenheit 9/11"

Official site for "Control Room" | IMDb site for "Control Room"