Nezouh review – com­pas­sion­ate but need­less­ly convoluted

Nezouh means dis­place­ment in Ara­bic. This three-syl­la­ble word denotes a sit­u­a­tion where some­one is forced to leave their home. It’s an unfath­omable term for Motaz (Samir al-Mas­ri), who lives in a rav­aged Dam­as­cus neigh­bour­hood with his wife Hala (Kin­da Alloush) and 14-year-old daugh­ter Zeina (Hala Zein), and refus­es to aban­don his home as mil­i­tants close in dur­ing the Syr­i­an civ­il war.

Syr­i­an film­mak­er Kaadan’s sec­ond fea­ture is less about war and more about a lost child­hood. It opens with a shot of Zeina cramped under her bed, draw­ing flow­ers on her walls, before hur­ried­ly scur­ry­ing out when her father calls for her. Lat­er, she throws rub­ble from destroyed build­ings into the sky and envi­sions the frag­ments becom­ing birds, soar­ing away to free­dom. She imag­ines fish­ing with Amer (Nizar Alani), a boy from the only oth­er fam­i­ly around whom she befriends. There is a ten­der­ness to the por­tray­al of Zeina’s inno­cence that forces the view­er to con­tend with the har­row­ing expe­ri­ences of the mil­lions of Syr­i­an chil­dren who had their lives upend­ed by the war.

This is inten­si­fied by Hélène Lou­vart and Burak Kanbir’s excep­tion­al cin­e­matog­ra­phy, which som­bre­ly cap­tures a sense of inno­cence with­er­ing away among the ruins. Zeina’s spir­it is framed by an array of low-key pan­ning medi­um shots that are abrupt­ly upend­ed by sud­den cuts to drone shots bar­ing Dam­as­cus’ destroyed infra­struc­ture – to con­trast Zeina’s naivety with the uncer­tain­ty and mis­ery of her reality.

While ini­tial­ly effec­tive, the strength of Nezouh’s stel­lar cin­e­matog­ra­phy does start to dimin­ish when the antic­i­pat­ed dan­gers do not man­i­fest. Motaz is told that the neigh­bour­hood will fall in 48 hours, yet entire days pass, and noth­ing changes. Gen­uine risk of death remains periph­er­al for most of Nezouh’s 100-minute run­time, which is a shame as it lets up the film’s intensity.

This is, in part, a con­se­quence of Nezouh’s ambi­tious approach to explor­ing a pletho­ra of intri­cate themes, which, although earnest, is extra­ne­ous to Zeina’s sto­ry. Kaadan’s script touch­es on notions of pride, patri­archy, fem­i­nin­i­ty and exis­ten­tial­ism but is unable to com­mit to broad-gauged explo­rations of all these themes, many of which remain half-baked and con­vo­lute the movie’s pac­ing. Even though she effec­tive­ly touch­es on peri­od pover­ty and tox­ic mas­culin­i­ty, Kaadan attempts to fit sim­ply too much into her film for all of it to work.

Regard­less, there is still plen­ty that’s effec­tive. One of Nezouh’s most pow­er­ful scenes is one where Zeina and Hala find an unin­ter­rupt­ed water sup­ply after pre­sum­ably weeks – if not longer. This warm yet heartrend­ing moment cap­tures the sheer joy some­thing this sim­ple can bring with­in the con­text of an extend­ed conflict.

Most impor­tant­ly, Nezouh serves as a reminder of the human toll of the Syr­i­an war, with over 300,000 dead civil­ians and over 10 mil­lion dis­placed. It urges us not to for­get those affect­ed by this unspeak­ably bru­tal con­flict, the con­se­quences of which con­tin­ue to rever­ber­ate today.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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