Please don't spend money on this.

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

A different way of telling a story

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

'A Syrian Love Story' charts the stresses on the marriage of a Syrian couple forced into exile as civil war takes grip of their homeland. As a documentary, it's uneasy viewing; as Ragdha slides into depression, one wonders at the morality of continuing to film. At the same time, the film struggles to provide any real insight into the wider political situation, perhaps because this is in essence a tale of isolation. While the story is sad, so are many peoples', and the couple's personal tragedy relegates the terrible fate of their country to a second tier. Oddly, this is a film where a bit more self-evident love amongst its protagonists might have allowed more insight into the state of their nation to emerge.

Before I start, I just wanted to say that I have been disappointed more than once by attending movies, seminars, conferences, or events for which I have had to pay $500+ and travel for 20 hrs away from home. But in any of those cases did I bother to write a negative review. However, the screening of this movie took the cake. We went with a friend to attend the screening of this movie in a university where the director was invited. Super excited to see something different and supposedly refreshing from the cliché north- American movies. Little had I researched the director. Before the movie started, there was a professor of humanities invited to give us an introduction and a bit of context. Let's say that it wasn't the most interesting introduction as it was quite an academic one. However, the surprise came when Mr. McAllister gets on stage to say a few words before the movie gets started... "Well, that was quite a long lecture, huh... I mean, did you get any of it? Did it make sense? I made this movie and I got no idea what he talked about (referring to the previous professor). And, I really do not want to hear the word context anymore. Not that I dislike it. But, just to give you give you guys a bit of context, (start laughing here)..." and so continues Mr. McAllister using sarcasm to make a good part of the audience (700 people) laugh on the expense of that poor professor.So the movie starts, and you can see Mr. McAllister snoop into the narrative to make it suit his own vision of what this story should be telling. And then, you are left with this weird sensation of not knowing whether the protagonists were telling their own life, or were they just a new sort of actors, between reality and fiction. They were real enough for this to be considered sort of a documentary, but words, phrases, conversations were forced/dropped unto them throughout the movie. And that leaves you thinking that they were these weird half actors, almost playing their own character, but in the light of how McAllister would want it. And that is why, for me, this is not a documentary. To top it off however, there was a Q&A with Mr. McAllister at the end of the movie. So after the applause, he gets on stage and starts: "So yeah, we will start with the questions, but just a bit of context (insert here a pause long enough and a good bunch to start laughing for him making fun of the professor).." After that movie was done, Mr.McAllister could not let go of this poor professor who had the misfortune of accepting to do the opening. With my friend we only stayed for one question to be asked and we left as no occasion was missed to use sarcasm and irony to make fun of the prof. That was a hugely disappointing but rather eye opening experience. I would expect that someone who cares so much about people, and decides to shed light unto tragic situations, has the basis of human empathy, respect, and compassion. But what I witnessed was a man full of himself, foolishly proud for making this (rather basic) movie, that he could not give the least amount of respect or appreciation to someone not as "cool" as himelf. I left that place thinking that someone who opposes a dictator and an oppressing regime should know about basic human values, but the harsh reality is that Mr. McAllister does not. And that made the rest of the movie feel like quite a hypocrisy.

This might seem a harsh judgment about a film charting the reaction of a Syrian family to the conflict within their country over a five- year period, but A SYRIAN LOVE STORY comes across as a shamelessly manipulative piece of filmmaking, where director Sean McAllister has deliberately shoehorned the struggles of his subjects into a clichéd piece of narrative.The story centers on Raghda and Amer, a couple living in Syria who both suffered the trauma of imprisonment for their revolutionary views. As the story opens, Raghda is still incarcerated and Amer has to look after their large family. With Syria gradually descending into anarchy, the family have to leave their country and decamp to Lebanon; eventually they are given asylum in France. But Raghda cannot forget her loyalty to her country, and so she departs once again for Syria to occupy a senior position in the rebel government, living partly in her own country and partly in the eastern Turkish town of Gaziantep. Meanwhile Amer continues to bring up the rest of the family in France while plying his trade as a farmer.The story is a poignant one, charting the ways in which personal feelings and political commitment often conflict with one another. Yet director McAllister continues to obtrude himself into the narrative, talking at one point about his own imprisonment in Syria, and freely associating with the family. This decision tends to divert attention away from the film's basic subject; are we really witnessing a depiction of an ordinary Syrian family, or concentrating instead on the director's relationship to that family?This conflict becomes more pronounced when the family are in France, and Raghda and Amer begin to play out their marital struggles for the camera. McAllister eggs them on with some shamefully leading questions, almost as if he wants to fit their arguments into a melodramatic narrative of his own making. There is a certain sense of absurdity about two Syrian people discussing one another's foibles for McAllister's camera in English rather than in their native language of Arabic.There are other devices that prove jarring; throughout the film Raghda and Amer's dialogue has been subtitled, even though their English pronunciation is perfectly comprehensible. The subtitles don't even reflect what they are saying, but provide a cleaned-up version of their syntax. McAllister himself resorts to using pidgin English, especially with the children, which makes it seem as it he positions himself as a privileged Westerner talking down to the Easterners.In the end nothing is resolved; but McAllister has his film, which presumably was his intention anyway.

Filmmaker Sean McAllister had the good fortune to be making a documentary in Syria at the time of civil unrest back in 2011 and this five-year-film explores the country's disintegration from the point of view of a family living there at the time. The husband is a former Palestinian terrorist, while the mother is a Syrian who makes the unwise decision of writing a book about the failings of the Assad regime. She's thrown in jail, and life becomes difficult for both the parents and their three children.This is a very well made documentary that lets the characters tell their own story without the filmmaker trying to get in the way or influence things. It's a grim and unsettling journey with no real happy endings; the husband is a flawed character unable to comprehend his wife's feelings, while the wife has more love for her country than she does for her family. What happens will surprise nobody, but the journey there is full of emotion and upset. I particularly liked the way the tough kids remained seemingly unfazed by what was occurring around them, so I guess there is a happy ending of sorts too.