Movie Review: City of Ghosts

City of Ghosts *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Matthew Heineman.

 

City of Ghosts is a documentary about the importance of journalism and information in a world in they are under attack. It takes as its subject the group RBSS (Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently) – a collection of citizen journalists, who wanted to document what was happening in their hometown in Syria – because no one was paying much attention. Sadly, despite their great work, we still don’t hear all that much about Raqqa – a city controlled by ISIS, who have destroyed much of it, or seen it destroyed by various other forces – the Syrian government, America, Russia, etc. – in an effort to fight back. The subjects of the documentary have mostly had to flee Syria themselves – they stay in safe houses in Turkey or Germany, and try their best to get the information that comes into them out. But it’s hard – there are fewer reporters still on the ground in Raqqa, and ISIS doesn’t like the information getting out – so they are dismantling the communication networks that allow the information out.

 

As one would expect about a documentary about Syria – City of Ghosts is a rather depressing experience to sit through. The title of the movie is apt, because its subjects have seen so many of their friends, family or colleagues killed – so everywhere they look, they see the dead. It would, of course, be easier and safer for them to simply give up – and stop trying to report on what is happening – but they cannot stop. To them, they have to keep going.

 

The film is directed by Matthew Heineman, whose last film was the wonderful Cartel Land – a doc that took us up close and personal to the cartels operating in South America, and just how deadly they were. That film had a raw, on the ground immediacy that allowed it to go deeper than most of what we hear about cartels. By contrast, City of Ghosts cannot quite do that. It mostly stays in Germany and Turkey – with the members of RBSS now in exile, working diligently to get the work out, and document what is happening – but it’s at a remove. They share their stories about what happened when they were there – in the earlier days back in 2013 as things were falling apart – but it does lack the immediacy of Cartel Land.

 

There have been several documentaries about Syria in the last couple of years – last year’s Oscar winner for Short Documentary The White Helmets and this year’s Last Men in Aleppo – focused on those men who drive around and try to rescue people after bombings destroy buildings. This year’s Cries from Syria – which I haven’t seen yet, in apparently a more comprehensive overview of the conflict. Now here is City of Ghosts that focuses on one aspect. In a way, the films work better together than they do as individual films – showing us images that will haunt and disturb, but are necessary to see. Not enough has been done, as people keep making excuses – but no one who has seen these films will forget them.