OUR TERRIBLE COUNTRY

“What is this shooting all about?”, the protagonist asks on camera. Young photographer Ziad Homsi, here making his first film, answers off-camera: “At first, it was about making a documentary on Yassin Haj Saleh, his trip to Damascus, his observations, his experience, his life…” At first, sure, but after a year of shooting, it is much more than that: it is about Syria’s wounds through the life of writer and dissident Yassin Haj Saleh, who has spent 16 years of his life in Hafez al-Assad’s jails, through the life of Ziad Homsi himself, and through their meeting. Thus, after his in-depth portrait of a theologian (Waiting for Abu Zaid, FID 2010), and in the face of pressing circumstances, Ali Atassi carries on his study of today’s high-pressure lines through major fighting figures. Yassin Haj Saleh had decided to stay, in order to live, share and bear witness. Yet finally he had to leave Damascus, now an uninhabitable city, and settle in Douma, now a town laid waste. Then he goes through the country on the way to Ar-Raqqah, his hometown. The trip is marked by some arrests (his wife’s, Ziad’s), and ends with an exile in Istanbul. As for the effects of the war, the film opens with the visible destructions, the fighting, the torn-apart buildings, but the filmmakers do their best to show its imprint on those who fight, their determination and heartbreaks, without turning aside from their respective viewpoints, doubts and hopes. (NF) span style=”color: transparent;”>Mohammad Ali ATASSI