Disturbing yet enthralling

A lot of fun.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

There arent enough superlatives for this movie. Really is one of those feats of documentary film making that reminds you that films can be genuine agents for insight and change. Outstanding.

After ISIS defeat, suddenly we get "heroes" who make an secret U turn then claim to be "brave". I am one of those who followed week by week the whole drama in Syria long before this shameless "documentary" come to the light. One cant be fooled again when in first 5 minutes the author try to "convince" us, with no shame at all, ISIS appear from nothing, like an evil incarnation. Matthew Heineman selective memory choose to falsify the history, by keeping all in dark when it come to Al- Nusra, Al- Jaball and other dozens of small terror groups born from the fake FSA, groups who receive intense support on logistics, hardware, financial, etc from US and so called "coalition". The same terror groups who shortly after "revolution" turn to ISIS and integrate all on this cancer so called "caliphate". This is not journalism, its just an shameless piece of defamatory propaganda who try to avoid any responsibility of the West in the creation and spread of ISIS. Today we all know who bring the terrorists on Syria, who pay for weapons, who train them, and, most important, we all know was not a real "revolution" like this piece of trash try to brainwash us, but yes just an failed "Libya 2.0" coup-de-eta . The REAL heroes are the people of Syria, who die defending their country against of jihadi animals.

Having won a national award for journalism, I was feeling really pumped about me until I saw the journalists in City of Ghosts. Here are heroes who leave me breathless in awe of their courage fighting Isis in its home, Raqqa. A formerly docile town, it changed with the emergence of ISIS tanks in 2014 after the remarkable Arab Spring of 2012. The citizen journalists, RBSS (Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently), begin fighting in earnest when they realize ISIS has taken control because of the vacuum of power after that Spring. This doc is almost exclusively a chronicle of their struggle to remain viable after ISIS zeroed in on them and began torturing and beheading relatives and friends.So the heroism is much more personal than fighting ISIS; it is about good people combating an implacable foe at the expense of their families and themselves. When the doc shows a fighter watching a video of his father being assassinated and when at the end of the film a fighter shakes in guilt and fear over having survived and his friends didn't because he escaped from Raqqa, the audience is witnessing a reality show like no other our poor commercial fluff gives us in that name.The depressing element of this is how successful ISIS has been because of the Hollywood production type elements in these gruesome and seductive promos. Assassinations are edited with the expertise of your garden-variety super-hero blockbuster.City of Ghosts features fighters who are ghosts of their former happy lives, but they are heroes the likes of which we have long forgotten.

City of Ghosts is a documentary independent film about ISIS terrorists in Raqqa, Syria, the citizen journalists exposing them, and the power of media used by both. In 2014, ISIS took over Raqqa by force and recruited more soldiers to their cause by distributing CDs. These CDs were poor in quality, looked amateur, and were not producing the results they wanted. A group of 17 correspondents inside Raqqa filmed the actions of ISIS and transmitted their footage to another group of citizen activists outside of Raqqa who would then publish their footage online for the world to see. ISIS caught on and stepped up their game, smartly, viciously, successfully.For 40 years, Assad ruled Syria. Slowly, Syrians had enough and rebelled. A group of high school students sprayed graffiti demanding Assad leave and free Syria. The government arrested those students, tortured them and killed them to send a message. Their message failed and a full revolt arose, successfully toppling the regime. Unfortunately for the Syrians, there was not a succession plan in place to set up a government to rule once Assad had been overthrown. A militant group of Muslims named ISIS took Raqqa and they were even worse than Assad.ISIS launched a three-pronged attack. First, they attacked by force. Then, they attacked by upping the quality of their videos used to recruit soldiers. They utilized Hollywood style filming techniques and special effects to entice Syrians to join their "paradise". Finally, they found out who was working against them and used intimidation to scare them off. They would publicly execute their family members, they would post pictures of those working against them and their addresses encouraging their soldiers and followers to kill them. They demanded that all satellites be removed and destroyed so they could be in complete control of any media entering or leaving Raqqa. They drove around in vans detecting internet signals and killing violators. But a few brave resisters would not be deterred realizing that either they would successfully share the truth, or they would be killed.This is a documentary that uses actual footage of the atrocities being committed by ISIS in Syria. These are not Hollywood actors, there are no special effects or makeup tricks. What you see is real. And that makes this film brutal and painful but necessary to watch. The preview showed that you would be given front-line access to the daily terror to which Syrians are subjected, and that's what the film delivered. It was hard to give this a typical star rating because it's not meant to entertain, it's not meant to thrill and take you to a make believe place. Even movies that are based on actual events are a little easier to handle because they are a step removed. They are recreations of things that happened and the viewer can take some solace knowing it's still a Hollywood movie. I'm not often squeamish at horror films with gore and blood. I'm more curious at how the special effects team pulled it off. With City of Ghosts, what you see is actually happening and cannot be brushed off as a trick. I honestly was not sure what exactly to expect. I didn't know how much would be shown in the movie and in how much detail. The movie is graphic, but restrained. You do see executions. You do see children being brainwashed and threatened with no choice but to follow ISIS. You do see the aftermath of public beheadings. But you are spared some of the brutality as the camera will film the reactions of the Syrians who had to witness their fellow Syrians, their fellow journalists, their friends and families being killed. But their goal is to spread the graphic truth of what is going on and their lives are at stake. I gave City of Ghosts an anticipatory 4 Star prediction. I am going to stand by my 4 Star Rating, even though it breaks my own rating scale because this will not be a movie I'll be owning. I'm giving this a higher rating because I think it is an important film that we all need to see. Not in spite of how uncomfortable it may make us, but rather because of how uncomfortable it should make us. marksmoviemind.blogspot.com