"For Sama" is a co-production between Syria, the United States and the United Kingdom from 2019, so this is still a relatively new movie. The title being in English (even if it is just one word) show that they certainly had major international ambitions for this film and they surely were fulfilled. But I will get to that later. As the film is, in its entirety, set in Syria, it is still a movie that is almost exclusively in the Arabic language. It runs for slightly over 1.5 hours, but still under 100 minutes, and one director here is prolific political documentary filmmaker Edward Watts, while the other is Waad Al-Kateab, the woman at the center of this story, a self-proclaimed journalist, for whom it is still the first filmmaking effort. I'll be curious to see if more will follow, maybe films in which she is just an observer and not a core character. But we shall talk about these (if they happen) talk on a later occasion. This one here is basically a fairly personal message from a mother to her first-born daughter. Or at least this is the idea the film uses really in order to create a personal atmosphere, especially at the very beginning and very end. Still, I am indeed curious what the girl will maybe thing 20 years from now or after her mother's death one day when she watches this film we have here. I myself would say that the whole idea does not feel too authentic for me. It would have felt more personal and authentic if she had kept it in her family album to really show her daughter one day and nobody else. But okay, maybe that is just me. In general, I struggled from the subjective perspective with several aspects here. For example, I am not big at all on the many jumps in time here, back and forth, but especially back, and I definitely would have preferred the entire story being told chronologically. But okay, maybe others liked it more this way and that is absolutely fine. Probably my subjective take took away another one or two stars compared to a 100% neutral take on this movie. But then again, a 100% neutral take does not exist anyway. Another thing I personally did not find too appealing were the truly personal moments, such as how we really see the female protagonist from extremely close immediately after giving birth when she holds her baby girls close to her. I am not sure if this is something you really need the entire world to see.
Now, these were just some perception. One of two things that extremely bothered me was that this film felt extremely scripted many times. One example would be how they depicted the matter of life and death situation in the car(s) at the end and it really felt like some cheap drama. This was absolutely not necessary. The fact that another young woman (or teenager) died earlier in a similar scenario gave enough grit and significance to that scene involving the main characters. There are several other examples. Basically, every time when the film tries to be really emotionally significant, it struggles hard with realism and authenticity. Like when Waad gets that flower before she has to leave the place. Or when the mother of the dead boy arrives rigfht on time for the camera to catch her. I am not saying that she was not the real mother or anything, but it felt extremely convenient and there were many moments like this. Another would be the scene with the highly pregnant woman being severely injured and we see the doctors fighting for the life of the kid there with how they move it, massage it etc. I must say this was a really dramatic moment because they could not really stage this situation, but, if you get what I mean, they staged it as much as they could with the happy ending with us not knowing anything about the woman or her health except the very basic statement that she will life etc. But maybe the worst quote for me was when we hear one of the many voice-overs from the narrator/protagonist and I am specifically talking about the one here where she says that she wished that her daughter never would have been born. And wishes that she had never met her husband and stayed with her family instead. I mean she obviously does not mean it that way and it is just meant in a way where she wants to emphasize how she really worries about their safety and does not want to deal with this fear, but still I found it an incredibly insensitive thing to say. Is this really what you want your daughter to hear? In general, the statements about feelings towards her child and man weren't a revelation here. Another example would be how she only wants her kid and man to be healthy and live. This is from earlier on, the exact opposite this time, to emphasize how she loves them more than her own life. A bit exaggerated too. Oh well. Maybe I am just too much of a rationalist for that.
And finally, another aspect (the second I found highly disappointing) I would like to elaborate on is the political component. Definitely the key aspect for this film to score an Academy Award nomination last year and looking at how the film won the BAFTA for Best Documentary, the Oscar was probably also not out of reach. This component is what I am referring to with the title of my review. It is extremely one-sided. If you knew nothing about the entire Aleppo situation, you could really think that Russia is personified evil and Assad is personified Satan. Some might agree. I do not. But I do not want to write an essay in their defense now. Let me just say so much: Even if you are directly involved like the main character here, a journalist's task (and Waad says that is her profession) is always to stay neutral. One thing I found especially off was how early on they said that Muslims and Christians unite to fight Assad. I am pretty sure that Christians will not fight Assad. Or at least not to the same extent that Muslims will. And to an even bigger extent that radical Muslims are. It is very debetable if you could call Waad herself a rebel and resistance fighter, but if she is not, then at least she has connections to radical resistance fighters, direct or indirect. The people you see in this film are by no means harmless sheep that are savaged by the big extremely violent wolf. They know very well themselves how to wreak havoc. And the film is not distancing itself from those who do. It simply completely excludes them, which I found quite a pity because otherwise, if it had spoken out against those, this movie really could have made a brave political statement. However, it did not and this is why the film is at its core not really worth seeing for me. But yeah, like I said, I am not surprised at all that liberal America (or I should say liberal Hollwood and Britain) really dug this movie and spammed it with awards. Over a 100 nominations is truly massive and so is the fact that it won over 50% of these. I personally believe that it did not deserve any of these. The reasons I have stated above mostly. Then again, I will not give up on Waad (yet) and even if she and especially her husband (also with the bizarre marriage proposal story that felt pretty made up to me) did not seem too likable, she is still a relatively young filmmaker and maybe she can step things up in the future with new upcoming projects. She is also pretty stunning by the way no denying. And I am glad that finally she understood when she was pregnant the second time that this place where she lives is definitely not a good place to bring up another child. So yeah, thumbs-down from me for this movie. I suggest you watch something else instead. Or if you decide to watch it, at lest take a neutral stance. You can still appreciate the giraffe comment about Assad. That one was pretty hilarious and one of the rare occasions when this film did not feel staged. But these moments are absolutely not sufficient in terms of quantity, i.e. frequent enough. So go watch something else instead.
Now, these were just some perception. One of two things that extremely bothered me was that this film felt extremely scripted many times. One example would be how they depicted the matter of life and death situation in the car(s) at the end and it really felt like some cheap drama. This was absolutely not necessary. The fact that another young woman (or teenager) died earlier in a similar scenario gave enough grit and significance to that scene involving the main characters. There are several other examples. Basically, every time when the film tries to be really emotionally significant, it struggles hard with realism and authenticity. Like when Waad gets that flower before she has to leave the place. Or when the mother of the dead boy arrives rigfht on time for the camera to catch her. I am not saying that she was not the real mother or anything, but it felt extremely convenient and there were many moments like this. Another would be the scene with the highly pregnant woman being severely injured and we see the doctors fighting for the life of the kid there with how they move it, massage it etc. I must say this was a really dramatic moment because they could not really stage this situation, but, if you get what I mean, they staged it as much as they could with the happy ending with us not knowing anything about the woman or her health except the very basic statement that she will life etc. But maybe the worst quote for me was when we hear one of the many voice-overs from the narrator/protagonist and I am specifically talking about the one here where she says that she wished that her daughter never would have been born. And wishes that she had never met her husband and stayed with her family instead. I mean she obviously does not mean it that way and it is just meant in a way where she wants to emphasize how she really worries about their safety and does not want to deal with this fear, but still I found it an incredibly insensitive thing to say. Is this really what you want your daughter to hear? In general, the statements about feelings towards her child and man weren't a revelation here. Another example would be how she only wants her kid and man to be healthy and live. This is from earlier on, the exact opposite this time, to emphasize how she loves them more than her own life. A bit exaggerated too. Oh well. Maybe I am just too much of a rationalist for that.
And finally, another aspect (the second I found highly disappointing) I would like to elaborate on is the political component. Definitely the key aspect for this film to score an Academy Award nomination last year and looking at how the film won the BAFTA for Best Documentary, the Oscar was probably also not out of reach. This component is what I am referring to with the title of my review. It is extremely one-sided. If you knew nothing about the entire Aleppo situation, you could really think that Russia is personified evil and Assad is personified Satan. Some might agree. I do not. But I do not want to write an essay in their defense now. Let me just say so much: Even if you are directly involved like the main character here, a journalist's task (and Waad says that is her profession) is always to stay neutral. One thing I found especially off was how early on they said that Muslims and Christians unite to fight Assad. I am pretty sure that Christians will not fight Assad. Or at least not to the same extent that Muslims will. And to an even bigger extent that radical Muslims are. It is very debetable if you could call Waad herself a rebel and resistance fighter, but if she is not, then at least she has connections to radical resistance fighters, direct or indirect. The people you see in this film are by no means harmless sheep that are savaged by the big extremely violent wolf. They know very well themselves how to wreak havoc. And the film is not distancing itself from those who do. It simply completely excludes them, which I found quite a pity because otherwise, if it had spoken out against those, this movie really could have made a brave political statement. However, it did not and this is why the film is at its core not really worth seeing for me. But yeah, like I said, I am not surprised at all that liberal America (or I should say liberal Hollwood and Britain) really dug this movie and spammed it with awards. Over a 100 nominations is truly massive and so is the fact that it won over 50% of these. I personally believe that it did not deserve any of these. The reasons I have stated above mostly. Then again, I will not give up on Waad (yet) and even if she and especially her husband (also with the bizarre marriage proposal story that felt pretty made up to me) did not seem too likable, she is still a relatively young filmmaker and maybe she can step things up in the future with new upcoming projects. She is also pretty stunning by the way no denying. And I am glad that finally she understood when she was pregnant the second time that this place where she lives is definitely not a good place to bring up another child. So yeah, thumbs-down from me for this movie. I suggest you watch something else instead. Or if you decide to watch it, at lest take a neutral stance. You can still appreciate the giraffe comment about Assad. That one was pretty hilarious and one of the rare occasions when this film did not feel staged. But these moments are absolutely not sufficient in terms of quantity, i.e. frequent enough. So go watch something else instead.