(IMAGE: FILM MOVEMENT)
Film Movement. 2018. Drama. 85 minutes.
RATING: 4 angels
It takes scarcely ten minutes for writer/director Philippe Van Leeuw to tighten the screws and raise the stakes in In Syria, an unbridled emotional gut-punch that brings the horror and the humanity of the Syrian War front and center without ever really leaving the confines of a single apartment. The Franco-Belgian-Lebanese co-production — originally titled Insyriated when it won the 2017 Panorama Audience Award at the Berlin Film Festival — also represents another significant step forward for Arabic-language cinema on the world stage — after years of effectively being confined to the Arab world, recent years have seen no fewer than a half-dozen Arabic-language films, many of them European co-productions, capture the hearts and minds of Western audiences — among them Wadjda (2012), Theeb (2014), the Oscar-nominated The Insult (2017) and current Oscar-nominee Capernaum (2018). It’s distinguished company In Syria can proudly join, enriching and deepening the world’s understanding of and appreciation for the most complex and beleaguered corner of the globe.
Shooting entirely in and around an apartment building in Beirut, Belgian-born Van Leeuw — best known stateside as cinematographer for Bruno Dumont’s 1997 La Vie de Jésus and his 2009 directing debut The Day God Walked Away — elects to convey the horrors of the Syrian war through the eyes and ears of two families holed up in the same Damascus apartment over a twenty-four hour period. Despite the distant sounds of bombs and missiles growing ever closer and a sniper threatening to turn their building’s front parking lot into a killing field should anyone dare tempt exiting in daylight, family matriarch Oum Yazan (Hiam Abbass) stubbornly refuses to abandon the apartment that represents the only home she has ever known. Under her charge are her daughters Yara and Alia (Alissar Kaghadou and Ninar Halabi), Yara’s boyfriend Kareem (Elias Khatter), her son Yazan (Mohammad Jihad Sleik), father-in-law Mustafa (Mohsen Abbas) and maid Delhani (Juliette Navis) as well as a family of three from an upstairs apartment — Halima (Diamand Abou Abboud), her husband Selim (Moustapha Al Kar) and their newborn baby boy. They are the last holdouts in the abandoned building and, as such, vulnerable not only to bombs, rockets and snipers, but bandits, looters and any roving criminal element ready to exploit the chaos of war. Two wooden crossbars keep their front door secure at all times — both a feeble attempt at forestalling the inevitable, and a powerful symbol of courage and resilience in the face of overwhelming odds.
It is no coincidence that Van Leeuw’s film is all but absent any fighting age males — without unduly divulging any crucial plot points, Yazan, Kareem and Selim are not the primary players here. This is first and foremost a woman’s tale, in which Oum Yazan, Halima and Delhani are forced to shoulder the greatest burdens of all. In the end, it devolves into a kind of philosophical face-off between Oum Yazan and Halima as each is forced to face the horror of war in diametrically different ways. What makes Van Leeuw’s script and directing so effective, however, is that he neither pulls his punches nor judges his characters — in stark contrast to the traditional Hollywood model, this is a film devoid of heroes, valorous rescuers, courageous martyrs and triumphant survivors. In their place is a ragtag assemblage of terrified, flawed people — prone to hubris and mistakes, as well as an unwillingness to admit to mistakes after they’ve been made, for the real horror of war is not found in the bloodletting of combat nor the physical devastation of battle but in the individualized toll it takes on simple people — human beings reduced to their basest survival instincts through no fault of their own. Precisely how the audience will respond is, by design, uncertain — there are no easy answers or easy choices, and viewers are expected to wrestle with the outcome as if they themselves were a party to it — which is entirely the point.
The claustrophobic war film is, of course, a time-honored genre, especially in Europe and Asia. Typically, however, such films center on the experiences of soldiers as in Das Boot (1981) and Lebanon (1982). The more apt analogy here would be George Stevens’ 1959 The Diary of Anne Frank, though even that comparison seems superficial to the topic at hand. The Syrian conflict — which, as of this writing, has raged for nearly eight years — appears no nearer its end than its beginning, with a death toll close to a half million and one-third of Syria’s eighteen million citizens having fled the nation while another third live displaced as internal refugees. It is, beyond any question, the great humanitarian catastrophe of the twenty-first century, an event of such magnitude that, at present, its impact can only be conveyed in such microcosm as Van Leeuw has brilliantly constructed here.
Despite the tight quarters, Van Leeuw never allows the film to devolve into theatricality. The staging and blocking within the apartment is dynamic and spontaneous, the camera frequently as surprised as the film’s characters and viewers. The sound design — from bombs and bullets to the equally intimidating creaking of floorboards and unexpected footsteps — is incomparable, possibly the single most crucial technical contribution to the film’s dramatic tension. Nothing, however, would work if not for the cast, notably the two lead actresses whose magnetic, majestic performances power the story through its harrowing twists and turns like a freight locomotive. The Nazareth-born Abbass has been an international fixture for decades with acclaimed turns in such films as Steven Spielberg’s Munich (2005), Lemon Tree (2008), Amreeka (2009) and Miral (2009) — audiences should expect nothing less than the superlative work she delivers here. More surprising is the Lebanese-born Abboud, already so impressive in The Insult, who proves the picture’s most potent contributor, tapping a range of emotions that quite literally carry it through its most difficult and grueling passages.
As with all such conflicts, the Syrian war will undoubtedly fuel many more great films to come — as survivors come forward and embrace the tools of cinema to come to grips with their stories and share them with the outside world. Until that time, it is up to outsiders to define the contours of the conflict and dramatize it accordingly — a task which Van Leeuw and his extremely talented collaborators have managed with magnificent aplomb.