"There are 1,001 stories," Mohammad began, when a naïve journalist--me--questioned him at the panel discussion. The country's informants and pseudo-journalists, he said, started a whispering campaign against the film and its theme of the pathology of power, as seen within one family.

And then, the lead actor (writer-director Abdellatif Abdul-Hamid) was made up to look like Assad.

With that, the naïve inquirer suddenly understood some of those inexplicably jumpy moments--such as the family leader's abrupt appearance at a telephone switchboard, where he cheerfully taps the calls, or his sneak attack on the sweet, harmless man who's been dating his sister. For this crime, the suitor is beaten, while the surrogate Assad shouts, "We are the source of morality!"

These little allegories may need some deciphering, especially for foreigners; but they are transparent compared with the denser, more symbolic imagery of Mohammad's second feature, Sacrifices (2003). Perhaps under the pressure of those fifteen years of imposed silence, Mohammad changed his style remarkably for this film, going in one leap from Kusturica to Tarkovsky. The locale, again, is a rural settlement; the characters once more are members of an extended family. But starting from the opening shot--a screen-filling close-up of a man's head, entirely slathered in green mud--Sacrifices is not a story but an unsettling, fragmentary mood piece, evoking the yearnings, angers and frustrations of people who are stuck in limbo. A naked child is lowered head first through a hole in the ceiling, into a shaft of light. A door swings open and the Angel of Death enters, in the form of a pigeon. A girl presses her head against the bare shoulder of the boy who loves her, and the freckles migrate from her face onto his skin. A teacher, chanting the Koran at the foot of a tree, looks up to find his pupils arrayed on the branches, like giggling fruit. Even a Syrian, I suspect, would find much of this imagery difficult to decode. And perhaps decoding isn't necessary. These pictures, one by one and in timed succession, may be cryptic, but they also feel full and complete.

There is nothing enigmatic, by contrast, about Omar Amiralay's documentaries. They're as outspoken as can be--and yet they, too, convey their argument through unforgettably strong images. Among the most forceful of his films is A Flood in Baath Country (2003), which has the added benefit of encapsulating Amiralay's career for you. In 1970, fresh out of film school and fired with enthusiasm for the Baath regime, he made a short titled Film-Essay on the Euphrates Dam. At the beginning of A Flood in Baath Country, you see footage from this early work: brief views of dam construction, shot in expert imitation of Amiralay's beloved Dziga Vertov. Meanwhile, on the soundtrack, the present-day Amiralay speaks of his distress at having made such a film. Construction was shoddy; dams have fatally collapsed. As for the artificial Lake Assad, beneath whose waters stand inundated villages, it now seems to Amiralay to be the perfect symbol of the Baath regime, which seeks to submerge all life in Syria.

The image changes to contemporary footage. An elderly man, shown as if he'd been interviewed in a rowboat, explains that he knows the exact spot where his house can be found at the bottom of Lake Assad. Then another elderly man appears on the screen: a village chief and member of Parliament who has loyally served the regime for decades. In response to an unseen interviewer's bland questions, he sings the praises of Hafez al-Assad, the greatest of leaders, the most visionary of men, the all-knowing genius, the nation's savior. Cut back to the rowboat, bobbing on Lake Assad. When the scene changes again, you see the village chief's nephew--a local Baath Party leader and the principal of the school--discussing the role of education in Syria. Cut to children reciting lessons, which sound more or less like praise of Assad. Cut back to the rowboat bobbing on the lake.

• « Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next »

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.