(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
"I want to see the rebellion from the inside," says director Nizam Najar's narrative voice in the documentary Aleppo's fall, which had its world premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA) recently. The Oslo-based filmmaker has backgrounds from Syria, Libya and Sudan, and was born in Aleppo where he also lived from he was 10 until he was 16 years.
In the film, Najar returns to the now heavily war-torn Syrian metropolis, ten years after he last visited it. Together with a local photographer, he decides to seek out one of the city's front lines to find out why the rebels have failed to fight President Bashar al-Assad, three years after the riots began.
Different views. In the film, the two follow one of the city's allegedly 16 different militias within the Free Syrian Army, from 2014 to 2016, until the city eventually falls for the Russian-backed government forces. This rebel group is led by Haj Khaled, who, in the words of the filmmaker, is a kind of father figure to many of the young men in the militia. He is nevertheless challenged by the younger and charismatic deputy commander Omar, who is in charge of their military operations, and who often defies completely different positions than the leader. For example, respecting the ceasefire being introduced at some point, which Omar believes is an opportunity to try to bring together the various groupings to a common front – while the leader Khaled seems to fear that a unified unit will be more predictable and easier to manipulate for the enemy.
Internally split. Aleppo's fall is not a movie that draws the big lines when it comes to the Syria conflict. The focus is always on the local group, which Najar and his photographer have been impressively close to – not least in dangerous situations. Where we hear far more often about the many who have fled Syria, this film is about those who remained – who refused to give up, as the filmmaker has explained it. But, as the title more than suggests, the film does not give too much hope that their fight will succeed in the first.
The documentary paints a picture of an internally divided militia, and a significant point seems to be that the inability to stand together contributed to the rebels' defeat and Aleppo's fall. (At the same time, Najar reminds us that Assad was assisted by Russian bombers without the rebels having any outside support.) Here, the film points to the specific militia group – and possibly to a more general feature of the Arab Spring.
Many of the rebels seem concerned that religion should not become too dominant in the society they want to create.
Normal people. Lately, there have been quite a few documentaries about the Syria war, as we have also recently seen a wave of films about the refugees from both this and other conflicts. Aleppo's fall provides an in-depth depiction of the rebels' struggle in Aleppo, at a time when there were hardly any international journalists in the country. The film's foremost strength is precisely the unique approach the filmmaker has given to this Syrian militia, which he also follows in direct confrontations – and thus obviously exposes himself to considerable danger. In one of the film's strongest scenes, he is even present with a camera as one of the central characters is shot and killed by a sniper.
The people in the movie appear as ordinary people forced into the soldier's deed – the leader Haj Khaled himself is actually a tailor. The guns used to fire against the government forces are partly homemade. Extensive bomb attacks occur regularly in this eastern part of the city, which is already largely in ruins.
Many of the rebels seem concerned that religion should not become too dominant in the society they want to create. However, as with the choice of military strategies, this question seems to be the subject of some controversy within the group, which in turn reflects the lack of a unifying vision. But one can understand, of course, their need to signal distance to IS, which is also fighting against the president. And in many ways, IS is a terrifying example of a group with just a unifying vision.
An important point seems to be that the inability to stand together contributed to the rebels' defeat and Aleppo's fall.
Experimental daily life. The film also depicts the soldiers' attempts to live a more normal life as the ceasefire comes into effect, but the filmmaker is not as close to his characters in these more mundane situations. Once he has chosen to include his own narrative voice on the soundtrack, he could have even more closely put the various episodes into context. The film is stronger in its dramatic single sequences than it is in dramaturgical entirety, and I suspect that some clarifying approach would have made the progress of the film easier to follow. However, that does not mean that I call for simplified explanations for an obviously chaotic situation.
Regardless, Nizam Najar is to be praised for not trying to take an all-knowing, summarizing position. Instead, he lets us get acquainted with one selected part of this extensive conflict, which is fairly consistently depicted from the ground floor. And although the filmmaker came out before Aleppo actually fell under the bombing, he is at times dangerously close to the dramatic events as they unfold.
Aleppo's fall will be shown at the Tromsø International Film Festival,
which is arranged in the period 15. – 21. January,
and at Oslo Dokumentarkino on 23 January.
