Film Review: "Cries from Syria" (2017).

"Fighting for freedom. Fighting to survive." This is Cries from Syria. This documentary film directed by Evgeny Afineevsky, and narrated by Helen Mirren. The film is a searing, comprehensive account of a brutal five-year conflict from the inside out, drawing on hundreds of hours of war footage from Syrian activists and citizen journalists, as well as testimony from child protestors, leaders of the revolution, human rights defenders, ordinary citizens, and high-ranking army generals who defected from the government. Their collective stories are a cry for attention and help from a world that little understands their reality or agrees on what to do about it.

Currently labeled as the second deadliest of the 21st century, The Syrian Civil War is an ongoing multi-sided conflict between the Ba'athist Syrian Arab Republic led by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, along with domestic and foreign allies, and various domestic and foreign forces opposing both the Syrian government and each other in varying combinations. Since mid March 2011, with the major unrest in Damascus and Aleppo and the Arab Spring protests, the unrest in Syria grew out of discontent with the Syrian government and escalated to an armed conflict after protests calling for Assad's removal were violently suppressed. Between 2011 and 2017, the war has spilled over into Lebanon as opponents and supporters of the Syrian government traveled to Lebanon to fight and attack each other on Lebanese soil, with ISIL and Al-Nusra also engaging the Lebanese Army. Furthermore, while officially neutral, Israel has conducted airstrikes against Hezbollah and Iranian forces, whose presence in southwestern Syria it views as a threat. International organizations have criticized virtually all sides involved, including the Ba'athist Syrian government, ISIL, opposition rebel groups, Russia, and the U.S.-led coalition of severe human rights violations and massacres. The conflict has caused a major refugee crisis. Over the course of the war, a number of peace initiatives have been launched, including the March 2017 Geneva peace talks on Syria led by the United Nations, but fighting continues. The film contains video shot by Syrians with and interviews with guerilla fighters, activists, journalists, defected military men, and refugees, some that are children. In an interview Afineesky said, "I tried to put together a comprehensive story so that people can not only learn from the historical mistakes, but so people can reevaluate what we have on our hands."

Cries from Syria never takes its eye off the story's underlying and very dramatic theme, and that would be nothing less than revolution. Though the film is limited by a point of view that's too polemically reductive, the idealistic, difficult, sometimes lethal struggles it covers are undeniably revelatory and moving. Modern technology may not yet be able to capture the smell of gunpowder and tear gas, but Mr. Afineevsky takes the viewer closer to the action than might have seemed possible. Being able to bear witness firsthand to this conflict is an incredible privilege, albeit a heartbreaking one. The film plays out like a harrowingly bloody, real-life Tales of Two Cities.

Simon says Cries from Syria receives:

Also, see my review for Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom.