By Glenn Dunks
The sheer audacity of making a documentary in Syria is something that astounds me. But part of what makes Syria such a fascinating subject for continued exploration is that theirs is a story we have seen unfold in real time. From its initial uprising to its deafening destruction and their continued traumas, the last decade have granted audiences a unique interior look into many facets of the Syrian Civil War from the side of rebels and side of the radicals, humanitarians and civilians.
So when I say that Feras Fayyad’s The Cave is easily among the very top of the docket, I don’t do so lightly. Fayyad is already an Oscar nominee for Last Men in Aleppo about the men known as The White Helmets. Here he has shifted gears to focus on the women doctors of what’s known as The Cave, an underground hospital network underneath the city of Ghouta. Mostly medical students who stayed behind to help those in need, the spotlight lands firmly on 30-year-old aspiring paediatrician Dr. Armani Ballour whose calming presence amid the storm of shells and fire around them is as compelling a non-fiction subject I have seen in a very long time...
Fayyad captures the unfolding tragedies with a floating fluidity, his camera often lingering on faces that express stories their voices could never tell. He follows the doctors and nurses capturing moments of beauty and grace amid the painfully intimate moments of war and death. One doctor plays classical music as he performs operations, teaching the female nurses about the art of composing. Another struggles to feed the doctors as she works with bulk portions of rice and butter to make meals the keep their energy while hope is depleted.
Strong throughout The Cave are themes of oppression within oppression. As these women struggle daily to do their job of saving and protecting human lives, they still must confront those who see the role of women as strictly subservient. Even in times of war, this additional layer of patriarchal disrespect weights heaving the doctor even though she had earned the respect of her male colleagues. Fayyad was wise to give moments like these the air they require because within the larger story of Syria are many, many, many more stories. “Is god really watching” she asks at the start to which she seems to reply nearly an hour later “Religion is just a tool for men… They take the parts they like and ignore the parts they don’t like.” I got the sense that Dr. Ballour would have been a force of nature, her potential unfairly stripped by warmongers and power-seekers.
There was another moment that has conveniently haunted me since I watched it. It was when the doctor notes how “I don’t know what makes people have children in these circumstance”. Convenient because I followed The Cave with For Sama, another Syrian-set documentary (set in Aleppo), but this time about one woman’s effort to make a diary for her infant daughter while she and her husband doctor attempt to make a home for themselves within the violence and the rubble. While The Cave is predominantly about women in Syria, For Sama is about motherhood. They quite naturally share themes and it’s a question that I had expected in the latter and hoped to be answered.
Directed by Waad Al-Khateab and assisted towards its finished product by British filmmaker Edward Watts, For Sama is the more harrowing of the two, following five years in Al-Khateab’s life before and after the birth of Sama as they struggle with the day-to-day life of living in a warzone. Scenes of desperation and despair are frequent, and what it lacks in any real form of polish – drone shots are the only times the camera isn’t shaking and spinning; people who get queasy from handheld camera should be wary – it gains in the form of a raw palpability. What astonishing moments she captures. And yet, I wish the editing had been sharper and cut more around Al-Khateab’s camerawork and built something closer to a narrative.
Perhaps it is just For Sama’s bad luck that I watched it in such quick succession to The Cave, but I kept coming back to Dr. Armani’s words. Al-Khateab certainly raises her fair share of concerns. She muses on whether her daughter will hate her for having kept her in Aleppo and later how Sama has grown immune to the sounds of bombs, missiles and warplanes. She worries further that she will not be able to feed her children when she reveals she is pregnant for a second time. The opportunity to explore these issues is admittedly slim (although Al-Khateab does narrate the film after the fact), but these two co-directors have woven this very rough and raw material together in a way that it feels somewhat unfinished.
As this family make their way towards the film’s final moments, I felt I had gotten a glimpse into life in Syria, definitely. A very tragic glimpse. But despite her holding the camera at every turn, I felt I had gotten less of an insight into Al-Khateab herself. As strictly a document, it’s a powerful and searing indictment. But as a something more intimate from a mother to a daughter, I missed the connection.
You can also read Murtada's interview with Al-Khateab and Watts.
Release: For Sama screens on PBS this coming November 19. The Cave may still be screening in limited theatrical release, but it is a National Geographic release so will hopefully make its way to home screens soon (it is probably too traumatic for Disney+, and I have no idea what's happening there).
Oscar chances: Both are in with a great shot. I would be predicting The Cave first simply because it feels more in line with what the branch has nominated before (including Fayyad's Last Men in Aleppo). Could they nominate both? Could they be tired of Syria as a subject (there have been four nominees in the last few years about Syria after all and, well, the Academy can be fickle!).