Of Fathers And Sons

Okay, still catching up with films nominated for Oscars last year. Of Fathers And Sons was nominated for Best Documentary Feature. Director Talal Derkl, who is from Syria but lives in Germany, returns to the country, embedded with a member of a terrorist group, and gives a fascinating look at what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil.

The film focuses on Abu Osama and his sons. Notably, there are no women seen in this film. Osama is a volunteer with al-Nusra, which is a group affiliated with al-Qaeda. He searches for mines and is an occasional sniper. We don't see him in action much, mostly just talking about his beliefs and his wishes for his sons. One of them, also named Osama, is gung-ho, while another, Aymon, is more reticent.

Derkl acts pretty much like a fly on the wall (he has told his subjects that he is sympathetic to their cause) and we see them in their daily habits, but more interesting is when the boys are sent to a military camp. They were camouflage outfits and balaclavas, and do sit-ups while the instructor fires a gun close to them.

Abu Osama loses a foot while clearing mines, but this, along with everything else that happens to anybody, is chalked up to Allah. This film is a clear look at religious fanaticism, and how it is spread to the children. It isn't just in the Arab world, of course, and not all of Islam is like this, but this is what is going on in Syria now. Derkl, who narrates at the beginning and end of the film, describes at the end how his country is nothing like it was, and bemoans what has happened.

Of Fathers And Sons can be a little slow, even for a film that is only ninety minutes, and for a while I had trouble understanding what I was seeing (the film appears to be in non-linear form, as Abu Osama has a different hair length in almost every scene, and I wasn't sure he was the same person for a good chunk of the film). Still, it is a powerful reminder of the horror that is going on in Syria. Interestingly, two films that were just nominated for this year's Oscar are about Syria.