Syn Babilonu Reviews

I'm incredibly overwhelmed about the fact that i'm reviewing an Iraqi movie, because in all my years watching movies, never thought that some day i will be watching a movie from my own country, because we are a nation of wars, discriminated by the entire world for 30 years, and discriminated by our system for 30 years, an under developed country that is barely recovering from dictatorship that took the lives of so many generations, a nation of people that became so familiar with death even 10 years from the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Set in 2003, this movie takes place 3 days after the fall of Saddam Hussein, at an unknown location in Kurdistan with an old woman and her grandson who embark on a devastating road trip, traveling for 1000 Km to northern Iraq (Nasiriyah), to search for her son (Ibrahim) who have been missing for 12 years (since 1992), all she has is a letter from a friend in battle saying that Ibrahim have been captured by Saddam Baath party and imprisoned in AL-Nasiriyah Prison, with a little hope Ibrahim mother takes her grandson Ahmed through a brutal, dangerous route searching for his father.

After arriving at the prison, they found it to be compromised by locals who came searching for their sons, so they starts searching in massive graves trying to find his name on the lists, going from one mass grave to another, you go through their desperation and struggles, they meet Musa, a former national guard who was forced to kill women and children in Anfal Massacre in Kurdistan, you get to hear his story and how Baath party threatened to kill his wife and children if he refuses to comply, he starts helping them going from one place to another, until they're overwhelmed by his help and decide to continue alone.

As you can imagine, a story about a guy who have been missing for 12 years, and was captured by Saddam Baath party for god knows why, does not have a happy ending, and it shouldn't, it was pure reality, even more than the story of desperation, the actual end was devastating.

It's very hard to mention the word "performances" here, because non of them were professional actors, just normal people who lived these situations before or seen them from close, but they left no doubts in me and were completely satisfying, specially Shazada Hussein with that desperate look on her face, she was heartbreaking, along with very good performance by Musa (Bashir Al Majid) and let's not forget Ahmed who delivered a believable performance, even though sometimes he was mediocre, but it was difficult to put a kid in these situations and tell him to react to it, so i think he was as good as it can get.

The film was shot in Iraq entirely which was very dangerous decision, even in 2009 where the situation are somewhat ok, it's very hard to film through Iraqi streets and Iraqi crowds, Hollywood movies don't take that risk, instead they film in Jordan or Morocco and alter the production design to make it believable with different degrees of success, but an Iraqi movie have to be from Iraq, and that was absolutely valid to show cultural differences, language differences, real people, and the cinematography did a fantastic job at showing historical landmarks from Iraq and showing the effects of destruction on Iraqi streets, they even recreated events from 2003 to show you how Iraq looked after and during the war, and it stills boggle my mind on how they did it.

Overall, it was pure, hard reality, a glimpse of crimes done by Saddam Hussein, a showcase of the results of a 30 years dictatorship, a story within a brutal reality, a movie that shines the light on a country that had so many genocides from inside and outside, some of them haven't even recorded or discovered yet, and this movie is defiantly not for a weak heart, as it focus on three generations destroyed by reality, and enormous effort from Mohamed Al Daradji and Human Films for this massive production.

one of the best movies i've ever seen ,, when you watch it you sympathize with um Ibrahim & the boy Ahmed & the country which has been lost
Music so Greaaaaaaaaaaaaaat , Bravo Mohammed Al Daradji