The Wolf of Baghdad Memoir of a Lost Homeland

The Wolf of Baghdad is an ambitious and beautifully executed motion-comic that tells the story of Carol Isaacs’ Iraqi-Jewish family during the first part of the 20th century. The persecution of Middle Eastern Jews at this time is generally less well-known than that of their European brethren. Nevertheless, Baghdad's Jewish population fell from 150,000 to almost zero during the 1940s, and The Wolf of Baghdad is a very human account of this tragedy. Isaacs takes older relatives’ oral testaments of events as her starting point and, through a finely-judged combination of comic strips and music, leads us from happy times of peaceful co-existence through civil unrest and the catastrophe of war.

Favourable comparisons have been made with the Iranian graphic novel Persepolis and, to this untutored eye, there are recognisable similarities. However, The Wolf of Baghdad moves at its own pace which, though it can seem a little leisurely at times, has the effect of drawing the audience deep into the narrative. Integral to the project's success is the exquisite music, performed by a very particular ensemble of Middle Eastern and European instruments – oud, ney (flute) and qanun alongside the accordion, violin and cello – that would have been recognisable to urban Iraqi audiences at the time. The soundtrack is an extremely wellr esearched mix of Iraqi traditional music, Jewish sacred songs and three pieces by Jewish composer Saleh Al Kuwaiti, the almost forgotten star of Baghdad between the wars. All the performances are world-class but special mention should go to Keith Clouston's tasteful oud playing and Daniel Jonas’ singing, whose intoning of the Hebrew Babylonian prayer ‘Hon Tahon’ over the final scenes of devastation is heart-rending. The Wolf of Baghdad is a family saga conveyed in a modest way – and is all the more powerful for its simplicity.