The female director Waai Akatib used a documentary to record the daily experience around the period from the Syrian revolution to the fall of Aleppo. Including one's own love, childbirth, husband (a doctor who stays in the besieged city of Aleppo) and other people's work status. The film contains some very precious historical footage, including Aleppo people salvaging slaughtered citizens from the river. Russian military planes have almost indiscriminately attacked the residents of the city, and so on. These scenes are accusing government forces of atrocities against rebel forces and civilians.
However, it is a pity that all of this is not the main subject of the film, but more of it exists as a background, as the background of the female director's life fragments during this period. Although this background is closely related to the daily life of the female director, war points to death, and production points to life. Babies born in the ruins of war also have meaning. But war is still the background of the film, not the subject of the film, which weakens the power of the film.
The film uses a lot of the director's monologue as a mother or wife, like the director's private diary, which records her inner conflict during the war-the director took herself as the subject of the film. This setting is quite strange in this film. Because in a special city in such a very special period, there are too many things worthy of filming and recording. This is a great time for the documentary to exert its outward attributes. Direct movies in the conventional sense often deliberately obscure the director's presence in order to maximize the outward attributes of the documentary—a fly-like observation on the wall. The residents, streets, hospitals, families, rebels, and refugees were systematically interviewed and summarized to achieve a comprehensive description of the city. Of course, this kind of induction and presentation already hides or reveals the director's views, psychological activities and political tendencies. Different from this type of documentary are documentaries called "private images". It completely focused the camera on the director's own secret heart, including a strong hatred for a certain massacre, desire for revenge, painful thinking, repentance to God, reflection on sin, etc. Let's call it the inward attribute of documentary. Looking at "For Sama" from the two areas that the documentary can touch, it seems that the film is neither outward nor inward. It's in the blind spot of documentary coverage.
The suffering of children in war can certainly make most people hate the brutal act of war. But this can easily lead to another consequence-anti-war and war are both extremely emotional and irrational products. In the war, people panicked and exhausted, unable to face all this quietly, and involved everyone in the same violent logic. The more in this situation, the more wisdom is needed to appease the chaos. And sort. This is very difficult, especially when I and my family are under the cover of gunfire all the time, and lose their lives at any time. You cannot ask the director of "For Sama" to be able to shoot this chaotic scene as rationally as a director living in a peaceful area. . It can only be said that this is very regrettable.
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