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.

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