There are probably only a few ways the exiled citizen can look at her homeland and the events that have driven her out: either in anger, in longing, in regret, or in resignation. In Lina’s 5 Seasons of Revolution, it is the very human cocktail of all four that comes through.
Set in Syria during Assad’s deadly reign, the documentary, which has premiered in Sundance, begins by introducing a collection of young persons we will come to see navigating the political turbulence of the Syrian version of the Arab Spring.
Its major figure is the director herself, who tells us at the start that in order to protect identities, deep fake technology and blurring will be deployed, the sort of framing that informs viewers this isn’t one of those documentaries where the villains have been vanquished and everyone can speak freely without some kind of repercussion. Within the film itself, subjects are presented with the option of concealing themselves in whatever manner they find reasonable. There was danger at the time of filming, which roughly took place from 2011 to 2015. There is still some danger now—perhaps because President Bashar al-Assad who came into power in 2000 still rules the country.
As is generally known, the impetus for the crisis was protests demanding that Assad be removed as president. The government’s response was violence. Lina, who depending on the situation is also Maya and a handful other names for security’s sake, covers the crisis even if she belongs to Damascus, a city she labels “smug” for its apparent disconnect from what is happening in other parts of the country. Lina, whose mononym appears to be another security measure, gets a camera and begins to film what is happening. This is both out on the streets and within a group of young journalists/activists who team up to do what they can to bring awareness of the plight of Syrian citizens caught in the violence.
From the inexorably chaotic nature of the crisis, it is obvious that 5 Seasons was never going to be a genteel account with a cohesive narrative and seamless editing, no matter the efforts of editors Diana El Jeiroudi and Barbara Toennieshen. You hear people speak in one scene and can barely see a thing — then in seconds the screen goes blank. Lina’s voiceover, the main unifying element across the film, comes on to say what has happened, which, in one episode, is the discovery of their hidden camera by state forces in plainclothes. As with regimes of a certain kind, to bear witness to ostensible crimes is to be judged a criminal. A member of the group explains that, in court, before the accused individual is released, they are told to stop protesting; but the judge doesn’t instruct the state to stop beating up protesters. The point is that in the eyes of the law, as interpreted by a sitting judge, only one of those things is a crime.
Along with presenting a fragmented account of what happens between the government, the defiant citizens, and the rather cowardly international institutions, 5 Seasons turns the camera on members of the group itself. As the years go by, it begins to change. Everybody gets arrested at some point, an experience that changes some of them. Two pillars of the group, Susu and Rima, begin to fall apart, primarily because one of them perceives a futility in their methods and seeks a different way. Bassel, a journalist, is killed during a shelling. The survivors have to find their way out of a violence that would consume them without thought.
One of the relatively peaceful moments shows an interview with a soldier who has left the government’s army, defecting instead to the Free Syria Army, a military group formed by defectors. He explains the difference between both groups as he fiddles with his gun. As a member of the Syrian army, he says, he was trained to shoot at protesters. Now, he protects his people. There is some guilt on his very young face, as though he would rather be doing something else. You realise that without the crisis and without his training in firearms, he could be an ordinary guy, a good guy. But then, as Lina/Maya reminds us via voiceover, “Good guys don’t win wars”. Assad’s bloody rule is evidence that this just might be true.
Director: Lina
Producer: Diana El Jeiroudi
Cinematographer: Lina
Editors: Diana El Jeiroudi, Barbara Toennieshen
Sound Design/Mix: Mark Glynne, Tom Bijnen
Production Company: No Nation Film
Venue: Sundance Film Festival (World Cinema Documentary Competition)
In English, Arabic
95 Minutes
