Filmed over 5 years, A Syrian Love Story charts an incredible odyssey to political freedom. For Raghda and Amer, it is a journey of hope, dreams and despair: for the revolution, their homeland and each other.
Forced from their home by ever more dangerous events and now living in France, this documentary follows the turbulent relationship between husband and wife Raghda and Amer, and their two children, as they attempt to assimilate into their temporary home whilst struggling to retain the sense of affection that once blessed their marriage. We see a sense of that love at the start of the piece when we are in their homeland and they are actively seeking a revolution that will free them from the oppressive Assad regime. Prison time follows before an escape to Lebanon and then asylum in France. She cannot settle, though, and returns to Syria to continue to play a part in it’s search for freedom. With Raghda there and Amer trying to keep the family together and motivated, director Stuart McAllister takes on the rather risky role of in-vision presenter/arbiter/counsellor. This is perhaps where the film under-delivers as the conversations seem increasingly designed more to reinforce the shock than to inform. The couple, especially Amer, appear all too familiar with camera (even if this was filmed over a five year period) and at times it borders on the staged or melodramatic. Much of what they, and the youngsters, have to say merits consideration but after a while I couldn’t help but wonder if it was spontaneous or scripted. Even assuming it was the former, it doesn’t always come across so convincingly. Their ability to converse in English is an useful tool in conveying the thrust of their story to us, but again it’s not quite as visceral as were that to have be delivered in Arabic and so again, it looked a little too manufactured. That said, there is more than enough actuality at the start to ensure we are under no illusions as to the gravity of the situation in their native land and even the most cursory awareness of the situation there will prepare us somewhat for what we are to see. In the end, though, it’s all just a little too much of the benevolent Sean McAllister show that rather pruriently involves us with a family that ought not to have wanted a camera anywhere near their predicaments. It’s fittingly inconclusive but did I ever belong here in the first place? I just don’t know.