When petty criminal Kamal (Aboubakr Bensaihi) decides to escape his life in urban Brussels and take part in the war in Syria, he is recruited into ISIS and quickly realises the dangerous nature of his situation, leading to his attempting to flee with his new bride Noor (Tara Abboud). Meanwhile, his younger brother Nassim (Amir El Arbi) continues to idolise Kemal despite his exposure as an ISIS jihadi, leading to his growing isolation from his mother Leila (Lubna Azabal) and classmates. As a result, Nassim is encouraged by a recruiter to travel to Syria to follow in his brother’s footsteps, leading to Leila being forced to make a perilous journey to save both of her sons.
Directors El Arbi and Fallah, most famous in the English-speaking world for their work on Bad Boys For Life, provide a visceral and detailed look at the power and dangers of radicalisation through Kamal and Nassim’s respective journeys to fighting for ISIS in war-torn Syria. Kamal’s path is shown in flashback, going from a news report about his involvement in an execution to chronicle how he was motivated to travel to Syria and eventually be recruited to fight for the Islamic State.
El Arbi and Fallah ensure that Kamal appears as a fleshed-out, three-dimensional character and not a stereotypical crazed jihadist by using his relationships with Nassim and Noor to show his compassionate human side. In addition, the occasional use of musical numbers to illustrate Kamal’s thought processes helps to provide greater empathy for his motivations for embracing and then escaping the jihadi life whilst also providing a stylistic variation from the more realistic mise-en-scène of the rest of the film.
In addition, the characters of Nassim and Leila are provided with considerable character development and depth, with the former being led astray in a similar manner to his brother and Leila being forced to make a perilous journey to the Syrian border in order to find him. El Arbi and Fallah also ensure that a detailed picture is provided of the war in Syria, noting how rebel militia groups help provide medical aid but also including the misogynist marginalisation of women like Noor by ISIS.
Bensaihi skilfully conveys how Kamal’s initial anger at the atrocities in Syria morphs into compassion for the treatment of Noor and eventual desperation to leave for home, whilst Azabal provides a moving performance as Leila; caught between wanting to keep her youngest son safe and venturing into unfamiliar territory as she travels to the border. However, it is Amir El Arbi’s performance that impresses the most, as the first-time film actor manages to depict the young Nassim’s descent into jihadism in a highly-convincing manner for his age, making the character seem like a three-dimensional human being rather than a simplistic stereotype.
Rebel is a powerful work about the war in Syria that shows that El Arbi and Fallah can go beyond their blockbuster leanings and produce work that contains emotional and socio-political depth about an issue that is still relevant and affecting many families across Europe.
Available on-demand from Mon 16 Jan 2023