(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
The generalization of violence is a calculated effect. Two important strategies for achieving this are permanent medialization and an information policy based on sensations. Only the voice of a first-hand witness can penetrate the horrific events of Syria in recent years, reconstructing the various phases of destruction that have been going on since 2011. 40 years after the Assad family regime was established, Syrian Obaidah Zytoon and Danish Andreas Dalsgaard have made the film The War Show. Out of the madness they have tried to create a mainly chronological order, structured in six stages ("Revolution" – "Oppression" – "Resistance" – "Siege" – "Frontlines" – "Extremism"). This is only contrasted with a chapter called "Memories"; this tells us about brief and fragile moments of peace out in the wild, with music and joints, to create a respite.
When the revolution is militarized, resistance to armed defense becomes.
The life cycle of war. The film is led by a female commentator voice who talks about her friends, experiences and analyzes in a remarkably crisp and clear way. Some of the faces shown in the movie are anonymous. We later understand that these are (still) alive and at high risk.
Zytoon and her friends joined the revolution. The film's first chapter, "Revolution," looks back on the euphoria of the early days, how alive they felt by demanding freedom for all – Christians and Muslims. This was the first time they felt free from a society that offered no future, just extreme injustice. In his rock show on radio, Zytoon asked a forward-looking question: "If we try to change destiny, will it get better or worse?"
Through a handheld camera inside the combat zones, Chapter Two, "Suppression," shows how demonstrations turned into funerals. Risking one's own life by resisting is a new, daily reality. The third chapter, "Resistance," summarizes the situation with daily killings and tortures, strategically organized outside the war zone itself by the government's secret security forces. As a result, the revolution is militarized and resistance becomes armed defense. "Siege" documents the rise of the war on territories, which is dominated by snipers, starvation and other forms of human degradation – including stoppages in fuel and electricity supplies. The film cameras capture the most important elements of the conflict, as an appeal to the international community for action and support. Damage is displayed with pride, along with an increasing yearning for heroism. Zytoon's friends are systematically tortured and murdered, in part in special military "hospitals".
To play war. In "Frontlines" we see children being trained to be soldiers by proud parents. More than this; the play pattern is increasingly characterized by war situations. Light weapons with no effect whatsoever are important for the war to continue as "play". Zytoon himself says it quite accurately: "Blast something, film it, upload it online and get paid." The different players in the war game are becoming increasingly unclear. It's hard to believe, but at the time portrayed here, Assad's strengths sometimes played volleyball with members of the "Free Army". The War Game documents this. But now it is warlords and arms dealers who are the dominant forces. Zytoon notes, "There is a place for everyone in the war show – except the people."
The last part, "Extremism": Assad releases free criminals and extremists from prison to cause violence in the name of the revolution and the Islamic religion. Growing extremism is the best way to legitimize their own military violence and to stamp the opposition as terrorists. On the ground, defenders of a civilian state are attacked by the warriors of the Islamic Revolution. Sometimes it looks like a game, where everyone wants to be photographed. But here the "revolution" begins to eat its children: female activities are banned, alongside several common activities in civil society. A civil war between different groups is taking over. "Only the crime remains," Zytoon notes in a moving final scene, planting some "peace seeds" in Syria's soil; a Syria that no longer exists.
Syrian children are trained to become soldiers of proud parents; Their play is increasingly characterized by war situations.
Complex and tragic. The summary information comes in the scroll: By mid-2016, 400 people have been killed, 000 million – or half of the country's population before the war broke out – are refugees; human rights organizations estimate that 11 are prisoners, and in addition 500 are murdered after torture or inhuman treatment in captivity.
Obaidah Zytoon and Andreas Dalsgaard deliver a complex piece of work, about the tragic game that involves transforming reality into empty effects. Sometimes the film strikes a chord with Baudrillard's radical thesis of the non-existent war. War becomes a show in the ongoing information war and decorienteringone that follows from it. The intentions behind the revolution are simultaneously perverted to the opposite, and so the revolution is also turned into an empty show effect. A show also in a third sense, which a pure performance the world community watches without intervening. A war, ultimately, where children play war, then die in real life.
