Day 53 - City of Ghosts


Day 53              City of Ghosts [2017 Documentary]
                          
Director                          Matthew Heineman
Cinematography             Matthew Heineman
Music Composition          Jackson Greenberg & H. Scott Salinas
Subject                           Syrian media activist group ‘Raqqa is being Slaughtered Silently’
Production                      Our Time Projects
                                   
IMDb                                 7.5/10
Rotten Tomatoes                99%

The opening credits gave me goose bumps. Heineman shoots the group he is following at a press awards ceremony, and the juxtaposition between the camera flashes, lavish dinner and well-dressed couples of the ceremony, and the grim reality of the group’s lives, is already clear. You can see it in their faces, especially the face of the group’s introverted cameraman Hamoud, who refuses to smile for pictures. Heineman follows a group of young Syrian men from the city of Raqqa, which at one point was one of the main strongholds of the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL) in Syria. These men set up a media campaign called ‘Raqqa is being slaughtered silently’ (RBSS) in response to ISIS’s control of their city and they became a thorn in the side of the fundamentalist’s aim to turn Raqqa into a caliphate. It’s perhaps the most brutal documentary I have ever watched, with multiple vivid ISIS torture and murder videos shown in all their gore. These are by far the most shocking moments of the documentary, often filmed in Hollywood quality by the ISIS media (so fucked up). The RBSS founders are eventually forced to leave Syria as ISIS go after them, their friends, family and anyone associated with them. There is a poignant moment when we see Hamoud watching an ISIS video of his father being murdered, as a threat to him and the other members of RBSS, and yet he continues to work tirelessly against them. This documentary is a duel between RBSS and ISIS, and by that I mean there is no in-depth mention of any of the other players in Syria. Of course, the Assad regime is mentioned as the revolution gave ISIS the opportunity to swoop in and take Raqqa, but really Heineman focuses on the smaller picture. The viewer is drawn in to the constant battle between the brave RBSS members and ISIS, which leaves us to ponder over the bigger picture. It’s an emotional look at one small group’s brave actions in the face of terror. A small media battle over the forgotten city of Raqqa, in the middle of a much larger war. I read, since watching the film, that 80% of Raqqa is now uninhabitable – nearly an entire city destroyed, and yet I heard about it for the first time in this film. It doesn’t tell you much about problems in Syria elsewhere, but it doesn’t need to, it is a case study that hints at the wider story and you’ve got to watch it.

Subject Matter                 4 / 4
Shock Factor                   4 / 4
Production                    3.5 / 4
Music                              2 / 4

HWF rating                4 / 4