(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
The war in Syria has now been going on for six years. According to Unicef, today one in three Syrian children has never experienced anything but war and flight. Hundreds of families flee every week. Nearly three million children are also internally displaced inside Syria, and of all the five million Syrians fleeing Lebanon and the other neighboring countries to Syria, half are children. In the media, gruesome stories appear about siblings who come home from school and find the house bombed and both parents dead. Photographs abound of photographs of children inside a bombed-out Aleppo. The question is inevitable: how can a whole world just sit and watch 100 children trapped in a city that is still being bombed?
In the book Considering the Suffering of Others (2004), Susan Sontag discusses the viewer's role in encountering images of war. Media coverage is a fact – we can no longer say we do not know what is going on. Sunday's question then becomes whether it really is the case that all the horrific images we are showered with, help to awaken us and create engagement. Is it perhaps rather the opposite – can one become immune from seeing too much cruelty?
In his new documentary, Egil Håskjold Larsen tries 69 minutes of 86 days to counter both the fear, selfishness and polarization that may arise as a result of the overwhelm we feel in meeting the media images. For is it not first and foremost a feeling of powerlessness that arises when we see these pictures? Who can make us feel that there is no point in getting involved? Håskjold Larsen aims camera at three-year-old Lean's escape through Europe. By starting from a child – a very ordinary child among many – he tries to call for a closeness and empathy that may make it impossible not to care.
Engages. 69 minutes of 86 days starts on a beach on Kos. Then we follow Lean's escape with the family, until they arrive in Uppsala, where the grandfather is from before. All the events are presented through a subjective, silent camera – a very successful move that helps to make the documentary different. The film lacks both voiceover, interviews and information texts, grips that are otherwise recognizable from the documentary genre. The viewer is transformed into one among all in the herd, and must, in the absence of a clear lead, decide for himself on the events. This actually reduces the distance – both to the events that are shown and to the people we see.
The question is inevitable: how can a whole world just sit and watch 100 children trapped in a city that is still being bombed?
Often the camera is only one meter above ground level between the adults' trouser legs, where Lean goes hand in hand with an adult. Despite the fact that it seems that Lean knows that the family is in a serious situation, she is portrayed as a normal, wondering and playful child. A child with a Frost backpack, which can also be seen on three-year-olds in Norway. A child who finds some fine stones on the ground and slows the family in front of a border control. Who plays with his uncle, who sings a song or shares a love on a stick with his little sister. A child who engages – in stark contrast to the frightening scenery Europe offers.
The children who are now in Syria or are fleeing from there have exactly the same rights as our own children in Norway have.
Children are right. Since the camera is only a silent observer, there are no place or situation descriptions and explanations from Lean or anyone else in her family. Just as Lean herself does not know if she is in Italy, Germany or the Netherlands, we also do not get to know anything, other than through vague references in the background. It is up to the viewer to guess at any time where in the escape process the family is and what is really happening behind the child Lean. Still, it's surprisingly easy to get an idea, much because many of the details, places and situations are already known from the news: used life jackets, an inflatable boat on a beach, passport controls, crowded trains, tents, a large field.
In connection with the film, Håskjold Larsen has stated that the child stands alone as a representative of something clean and unaffected. Their innocent and open attitude to what meets them, gives a hope and an indication that there is something in man that is good in the first place. By being shown as an ordinary child – a child you could see anywhere in the world – Lean helps to create closeness to the situation. She shows that refugees are not just statistics, numbers and pictures that can be ignored. In the same way, Sontag reminds us of To consider the suffering of others that even though one may feel powerless, it is important to realize that the situation is real. For some, it is a most vivid nightmare. It is actual people and actual children who today are experiencing the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of our time. The children who are now in Syria or are fleeing from there have exactly the same rights as our own children in Norway.
This will also be themed by Save the Children, who will show the documentary in collaboration with the cinematheques in Tromsø, Trondheim and Bergen in mid-March, in connection with the escalation of work for children on the run – the children the world today is failing.
Watch the movie here.
