As vital a documentary as any in the last ten years, Derki courageously enters the lion’s den that is terrorist-infested Syria by posing as a war photographer, giving us an unprecedented view of what it is like to be in the company of religious extremists young and old.
Review #2,839
Dir. Talal Derki
2017 | Syria | Documentary, War | 52 / 99 min | 1.85:1 | Arabic
PG13 (Netflix rating) for mature themes. The theatrical version is banned in Singapore
Cast: –
Plot: Talal Derki returns to his homeland where he gains the trust of a radical Islamist family, sharing their daily life for over two years. His camera focuses on Osama and his younger brother Ayman, providing an extremely rare insight into what it means to grow up in an Islamic Caliphate.
Awards: Won Grand Jury Prize – World Cinema Documentary (Sundance); Nom. for Best Documentary Feature (Oscars)
International Sales: Autlook Film Sales
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Slightly Mature – Religious Extremism; Syrian Crisis; Fathers and Sons
Narrative Style: Straightforward
Pace: Normal
Audience Type: Slightly Arthouse
Viewed: Netflix
Spoilers: No
This film was banned in Singapore but somehow it was on Netflix (not anymore though), albeit in a truncated version, running at just over 50 minutes instead of the full 99. But even with this shortened option, one can already feel the tremendous weight of achievement that filmmaker Talal Derki has shown.
Deservedly winning the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary, and nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, Of Fathers and Sons is that rare and exceptional non-fiction work that dares to go into the lion’s den, and therefore, giving us an unprecedented view of its highly prickly subject.
Derki, posing as a war photographer aligned with the radical Islamic Caliphate, returns to his homeland of Syria, now ravaged by terror cells.
Becoming close to a family whose father is an ISIS terrorist and whose young sons will one day be fated to preach the same cause, Derki shows us that these people are just as ordinary as anyone else.
“This war will go on for a very long time.”
They celebrate birthdays and care for their community and the injured. The kids play football but they also learn how to make bombs, and at some point, they will enter boot camp that turns them into highly disciplined child soldiers.
In one scene, a boy asks if he can kill a bird like how his father had beheaded an infidel. But his Dad tells him to let the bird go.
This goes right into the core of Derki’s film—that there somehow is a human being inside a terrorist; at the same time, these radicals are hell-bent on spreading their destructive ideology as far as they can go.
Derki courageously spent more than two years in that most dangerous of places, documenting his immediate environment and asking questions of fathers and sons. The result is as eye-opening and vital a documentary as any in the last ten years.
Grade: A-
Trailer:
Eternality Tan 
[…] and insightful work, Hollywoodgate will make a great double-bill with the even more disturbing Of Fathers and Sons (2017), which shares a similar modus operandi, as the film’s director, Talal Derki, gains access […]
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