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★★★☆☆
29 August 2017
A movie review of INSYRIATED a.k.a. IN SYRIA. |
"You always want to control everything," Delhani (Juliette Navis)
Cinema documenting a war while it is still unfolding does not always reward the audience with fruitful analysis. The full extent of the consequences and blame are still to be conclusively determined. INSYRIATED sidesteps this problem by not offering damnations at the instigators of the war in Syria. Well, not directly. The dire situation felt by the civilian population is the focus, and the culprits are cursed as a result.
Cinema documenting a war while it is still unfolding does not always reward the audience with fruitful analysis. The full extent of the consequences and blame are still to be conclusively determined. INSYRIATED sidesteps this problem by not offering damnations at the instigators of the war in Syria. Well, not directly. The dire situation felt by the civilian population is the focus, and the culprits are cursed as a result.
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INSYRIATED is a siege movie. Neither fun like ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 nor exhilarating like DIE HARD, this is instead scary and troubling: A lesson for those who lack the empathy to care about the refugees risking their lives escaping the consequences. What differentiates the film is that the protagonists face unknown enemies from all sides. It is not simply labelling invading forces as bad. Fellow citizens also pose a serious threat. Law and order has broken down. INSYRIATED could be an apocalypse movie.
A family and various associates are holed up in an apartment too small for their number. Dynamics are established without the need for tiresome exposition-infused dialogue. Relationships are rendered, from three generations of one family to neighbours, whose apartment above was made unliveable, to a boyfriend of a daughter who happened to be visiting when it was too dangerous to leave. Some form of routine is attempted, even down to school lessons. It is admirable, and seemingly tragically futile.
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Matriarch and leading lady Oum Yazan (Hiam Abbass) is a complicated character. (More cinema should have her complexity.) Oum is a ball-buster. For much of the runtime her unlikable quotient is high. The way she demands and berates the family servant, Delhani (Juliette Navis), chafes the ears. Even in anarchy, the class system is still alive; a sly commentary, or accidental inclusion? Of course one can understand short shrift when trying to keep your family alive. Oum must feel like she is herding cats. And the responsibility must ache. Be a robot, or break under the strain. How much Oum grows on you depends to what degree you forgive her for withholding a vital piece of information.
With the sound design of a horror film, bullets and doors crack when hammered. The majority of the household are women, the young and the old. No guns. No weapons. As ferocious as Oum is, this is not MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. Oum is not Furiosa. When roving predators discover them, INSYRIATED dials up the harrowing scale.
A woman is assaulted. After the disturbing rape the movie weirdly missteps. There is brief nudity while the victim cleans herself. The choice seems to sexualise the victim after the attack. It sits very badly. What is the point? It almost derails an otherwise competent and pertinent film.
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