A new film shows how women are join­ing the fight against Isis

The morass of con­flict­ing inter­ests and forces embroiled in the cur­rent wars in the Mid­dle East is hideous­ly com­pli­cat­ed, and study­ing up on the sit­u­a­tion may seem a daunt­ing task to any West­ern out­sider. Many opt to engage with the sit­u­a­tion sim­ply by shar­ing arti­cles they prob­a­bly didn’t read when­ev­er an espe­cial­ly hor­ren­dous event occurs or an organ­i­sa­tion comes up with a savvy social media cam­paign. Many sto­ries and groups are lost in the fray of opin­ions and reportage. 

For instance, did you know that all-female mil­i­tary units are part of the war against the Islam­ic State? Direc­tor Zaynê Akyol’s old friend Gulîs­tan joined such a group: the Free Women’s Units, a mil­i­tary branch of the Kur­dis­tan Work­ers’ Par­ty (or PKK). In 2010, Aky­ol went in search of Gulîs­tan in Iraqi Kur­dis­tan, fail­ing to find her but meet­ing many of her com­rades in arms. Ini­tial­ly seek­ing to make a doc­u­men­tary about Gulîs­tan based on her friends’ mem­o­ries of her, Akyol’s project mor­phed to be about the women themselves.

Gulîs­tan, Land of Ros­es defies the expec­ta­tions that come with doc­u­men­taries about war in gen­er­al and war in the Mid­dle East specif­i­cal­ly. There are no sequences of com­bat, nor glimpses of bombed-out cities or towns, nor footage of suf­fer­ing refugees on the march, nor inter­views recount­ing wit­nessed atroc­i­ties. This is instead an incred­i­bly calm film, set main­ly against beau­ti­ful moun­tain vis­tas. The colour palette con­sists of an array of greens, with grass­lands con­trast­ed with the mut­ed shades of the women’s uni­forms. Aky­ol watch­es them going through drills, main­tain­ing their camp, or sim­ply hang­ing out with the same steady eye. This isn’t war as hell; it’s the pur­ga­to­r­i­al wait before.

Over time, though, the film and its char­ac­ters draw clos­er to the fight with Isis. Though that fight is not seen, it is even­tu­al­ly heard oblique­ly, via dis­tant booms. As the troop of female guer­ril­las await the green light to enter the fray, they express their hopes, fears, and dreams to Aky­ol. Their mind­set is dra­mat­i­cal­ly removed from what West­ern­ers – Amer­i­cans in par­tic­u­lar – think of when it comes to join­ing the mil­i­tary. They speak not of want­i­ng revenge or out of blood­thirsti­ness, but their dream of a free Kur­dis­tan. Their nation­al­ism is aspi­ra­tional instead of defen­sive. Gulîs­tan is their manifesto.

While we get to know indi­vid­ual women, out­side of the inter­view seg­ments the film is most inter­est­ed in observ­ing them as a group. The PKK is a socialist/​communalist organ­i­sa­tion, and their mil­i­tary train­ing and pep talks empha­sise their col­lec­tive spir­it. Aky­ol oblig­es, depict­ing the women at work as a sin­gle organ­ism with many parts, includ­ing many fig­ures in the frame whether they are exer­cis­ing or talk­ing. Even so, the cam­era catch­es the nuances of each woman in the whole, such as how they wash their hair or take in a speech dif­fer­ent­ly. This is not the sub­sum­ing of one’s will into a mass, but a pool­ing of diverse wills for a greater good. 

Gulîs­tan is a rare exam­ples of a doc­u­men­tary that could tech­ni­cal­ly be described as pro-war. Which is to say it is pro this war, or pro these women, who are march­ing with lit­tle hes­i­ta­tion into bat­tle. A strik­ing char­ac­ter piece and a handy primer on the phi­los­o­phy of the PKK, it intro­duces much-need­ed nuance to the doc­u­men­tary con­ver­sa­tion around the Mid­dle East cri­sis, which is dom­i­nat­ed by a fix­a­tion on suf­fer­ing and sense­less­ness. This is a por­trait of war as a vec­tor for pos­si­bil­i­ty and change, even as it avoids any glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of vio­lence. That’s a tricky bal­ance to strike, but Aky­ol man­ages it with ease.