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'Full Battle Rattle' follows a battalion immersed in a 'simulated Iraq' at the US Army National Training Center in the Mojave Desert.

Most of the action takes place in one of several fake village called Medina Wasl. Behind the scenes, people in civilian dress orchestrate training exercises to prepare soldiers for all kinds of contingencies.

Jesse Moss, Co-Director: "It feels extraordinarily real. The army has employed about 1600 role players. The set, if you will, is about 100 square miles. It's incredibly sophisticated but it also looks like a Hollywood back lot. It's this combination of realism and utter surrealism that drew us to the simulation.

"The army employs Iraqi exiles to role play Iraqi civilians on the battlefield. These Iraqis are paid a day rate, they come and live in the simulation in the village, in an Iraqi village, and they play Iraqis."

In a strange twist, American soldiers play the belligerent Iraqi insurgents.

At times the events being shown are laughable, but other moments in the film are harrowing.

Even though the Pentagon has tried to control what images of the conflict in the real Iraq reach the public, the filmmakers were given free reign to document the army's fake Iraq

Tony Gerber, Co-Director: "I think that military personnel are relieved that there's a portrait of training and of US soldiers that's honest.

"Warts and all is sort of our approach to the subject. And there are things that some of our subjects probably would cringe at, that would wish that we hadn't included in the film."

The directors have been responding to audience's questions at some screenings, and reactions to the film have been varied.

One man we spoke to called it "mindless pap... a joke", but we also spoke to an Ira war veteran who disagreed.

Joe White, veteran: "Even in a simulated way it helped show people what the day in and day out is like for the American soldier and for everybody within that battle space."

Whatever the verdict of moviegoers, the directors believe what they've documented in the Mojave Desert is quite mindboggling.

Jesse Moss: "I think it's an irony that Iraq the country has disintegrated, at the same time a fake Iraq arises in the Mojave desert two hours from Las Vegas. I think it would be funny but it's really too sad."

'Full Battle Rattle' ends with a statement informing audiences that the army is now spending twelve million dollars to expand the fake Iraqi community of Medina Wasl and to transform it into an Afghan village to serve as a training ground for a different theatre of war.