Review: For Sama

"She is saying 'mum, why did you give birth to me? It's been nothing but war since the day I was born'."

The surgeon took out that rubber-like lifeless newborn from the womb of nine months pregnant mother who has just faced a bomb strike.  He tried to find its pulse, rubbed its back with intensity, but no response. Then he picked it up by its legs rubbed its back again, slapped hard its back again and again...and suddenly those little black eyes blink on the screen, you hear crying, and the narrator uses the word 'a miracle.' This scene from 47:50 to 49:07 is not of everyone's cup of tea. But those little eyes will always inspire me that even amidst the debris, life is worth fighting for.

'For Sama' is a very personal documentary about the journey of a girl who is a student, a journalist, a patriot, a rebel, who falls in love, marries, and becomes a mother. She passes through all the stages during the 'Battle of Aleppo' of five years (2011-2016) between people of the city Aleppo (Syria) and its government as a part of the 'Syrian civil war.' Waad al-Kateab, an 18-year-old girl, moved to Aleppo for study in 2009. She started to report the Syrian civil war for a news channel. She marries her rebellion friend Hamaza- a doctor and gives birth to her first daughter 'Sama' (sky). The movie is dedicated to Sama by her mother, al-Kateab. It's a sonnet by a mother expressing her immense love for her daughter, an elegy about people, homeless in their homeland, and an ode to freedom, freedom from barbaric cruelty by the government. For her artistic covering of reality of the war for five years, the siege of the city, ruthless airstrikes by the Russian force, she has won many prestigious awards, including a nomination in Oscar 2020.

The picturization of devastating confrontation between people and the government of Syria is both heart-wrenching and heat-whelming. Known as one of the bloodiest battles of the civil war, it took the lives of around 30,000 people. Sometimes, countless corpses, boundless blood, boneless bodies will rip your heart out, while sometimes you can feel sparks in the eyes of the people who still believe in life. Seeing a mother carrying the dead body of her beloved son on the street, two brothers kissing their little brother whom they couldn't save, a father trying to wake his lifeless daughter, you feel death till to your core. While seeing tiny black eyes of a new-born opening suddenly after almost surrender to death boosts you for not giving up on life so soon. unconcerned by the whole world and was seized by their government, these people are the only supporters of each other. Seeing them smiling amidst the catastrophic crisis brings a smile on your face with tears in your eyes. 

Sometimes I feel guilty. Sometimes I feel guilty for making complaints to life. Such movies make me realize how futile my complaints are. Complaints about the small house while others are living on the footpath. About empty stomach sometimes when others dying because of starvation for ages. About burden at the job while others are facing unemployment. About thoughts of giving up on life facing tiny heartbreaks while others are not even getting the chance to be born. Sometimes I feel guilty for asking a stupid question, 'why all these are happening only to me?' to my life facing troubles that seem significant to me while in some corner of the world, life doesn't even give enough time to people to ask such a question!!! When people are facing death just because they born somewhere, living somewhere, having a different religion, different color of skin, a different gender, or different sexual preferences, I can't afford a laugh or smile, which doesn't have even a small sense that somewhere in some corner, someone is in utter pain.

After seeing the movie, a couplet keeps coming in my heart,

"इस दुनिया में कितना ग़म है,
अपना गम तो फिर भी कम है"