Published: July 15, 2017
City of Ghosts
Review by Jeff Spitz
Brace yourself. City of Ghosts by Matthew Heineman is opening in select theaters this week.
I saw a sneak preview presented by Chicago Media Project which included a Q&A afterwards with one of the filmmakers and a key participant in the film who remains in hiding. He is in hiding because there are death threats against him and everyone in this film. Isis has already killed several members of the group and their relatives in Raqqa.
This is a suspenseful, harrowing film about courageous young men who allow a filmmaker to document their clandestine organization even while acknowledging that doing so could help their enemies track them down and kill them. The film shows why these people have wittingly accepted the risk. They take every precaution. Time will tell.
These are heroic friends who risk their lives every day to maintain an underground journalistic organization called Raqqa is Being Slaughtered in Silence (aka RBSS). This is an ensemble story with a cast of young Muslim men who live outside of Syria in safe houses in Germany and other countries.
This is an action film within a film. You will discover that when Isis rolled into their hometown, instead of taking up arms to fight them, these young men took up cameras to expose them. They also took up smartphones, laptops, software, social media, clever encription methods and a brilliant international strategy to obtain and transmit images from their fellow residents. They capture incredible footage from ordinary people who are risking their lives to feed the mainstream media horrible truths about Isis.
Wait right here.
Don’t we already know that Isis is horrible? Didn’t Isis become famous by using its own media to flaunt its horrific acts? Yep. They figured out this game and raised the stakes by using slick media productions to recruit internationally. And that fact is a crucial visual aspect of this story.
The fact that people in hiding agreed to be in a new movie that would ultimately expose themselves and their murderous enemy is by no means taken for granted here. Matthew Heineman is risking his life to show the evolution of RBSS starting back in peaceful times in Raqqa, a “paradise on the Euphrates”. Heineman’s film goes behind the scenes to unfold an incredible transformation on screen. We see a friendly paradise turn into a “city of ghosts”. He weaves authentic footage shot by RBSS cameramen into a stunning new movie about this group and the importance of citizen journalism for the future of the free world.
City of Ghosts put a human face on an unseen history and does it from the inside out. The film opens cinematically with a symbolic bookend sequence. We see RBSS members dressed up in suits and ties at a fancy awards ceremony. Admirers from the comfortable world of human rights organizations applaud their courage. They receive a presitgious award. An event photographer tries to coax a smile out of one of the guys. The photographer jokes but the haunted face staring back at his lens does not change. What follows is a deeply complicated relationship with cameras and image making. Any acclaim that this movie receives cuts two ways. Isis wants to track the cast and kill them but these are tough targets that want even more media exposure to show why they must continue their dangerous work. This is a deeply disturbing and evolving story. You can feel the stakes rising as you become more familiar with the good people in this film. They are playing a deadly game of one upsmanship.
The title tells you that you are going to a dark place.
In one of the most horrible moments that I have ever seen a member of RBSS is shown watching color footage on his laptop from an Isis website. We see the look in his eyes as he watches an exquisitely choreographed execution of a man tied to a pole. This man is his father. Isis staged the execution for maximum impact. They are infamous for using such scenes in glossy recruiting films. Heineman’s film shows you how their productions have improved over the years. This media arms race was more than I could stomach.
So this whole story forces one to ask painful questions about media. At what point do you stop documenting, put the camera away and run for your life? In this story a smart phone can get you killed. Could it help bring justice or at least some relief to Raqqa? I sure hope so.
Without Heineman’s film I don’t think we would be able to feel the impact of what happened to Raqqa. But now I sit here asking myself, did I really need this movie to tell me that Isis is barbaric and that they are destroying peoples’ lives and homes? Nope. Did I need this movie to show me why millions of people have fled Syria and risked their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea? Did I need it to show me that there are good Syrians who deserve our compassion and support? No. I was already aware. In fact I am overwhelmed. I feel anxious about the rising level of violence in my own country. And I am losing sleep over it. So what did I get out of this movie?
It’s complicated. And that’s what I appreciate most here. There is no simple way out. Even the damn camera is implicated. And so is the viewer.
This is a story of courage, solidarity and media activism that I will never forget. It comes with a thread of hope. The level of friendship and trust among the cast and with this filmmaker is truly inspiring. Witnessing the determination and love that inspired these guys to make this daring film inspires me to do more with my life. When you see how they are living with daily threats from Isis stating flatly that their “fate is a sharp knife or a bullet in the head” you realize that they are safe nowhere. And yet somehow being with these people strengthens you. I feel motivated to do more. I do not come away feeling more afraid. But then Heineman uses news footage of Isis related suicide attacks in Paris, Germany and the USA. These horrifying attacks killed innocent people far removed from Raqqa. And that point will hit home everywhere. Don’t just pity Raqqa, protect the freedom of expression and watch your back.
I confess that I am not sure how to respond to this movie. Does anyone really know what to do? Certainly I want to help RBSS directly through their website. That’s the least one can do. But then what? Europe and the US are both tearing apart internally as citizens divide into angry camps arguing about building a wall or welcoming refugees. That’s where we are today. Could my city become a city of ghosts like Raqqa?
If you saw Mathew Heineman’s previous film, Cartel Land, you know that he is willing to risk his life in the pursuit of a powerful story. And that he is concerned about ordinary people and human rights. He ups the ante here. You will be stunned by the way he seamlessly weaves his camera into the lives of his subjects. And the sickening implication of this act. He deliberately exposes you to an incredibly disturbing moral question about his role here. His subjects address it. They explicitly state the fact that his brand of filmmaking and the resulting media attention could lead to their assassinations. How does that sit with you? As a viewer in a dark theater I wondered could the release of this film provoke an Isis attack on a movie audience? I hope that doesn’t happen. The filmmaker and his collaborators have concluded that their truth must get out no matter what. I respect that. I am glad I saw a sneak preview.
There are advocacy groups standing by to help audiences channel their compassion into tangible forms of support for RBSS and the people trapped in Raqqa.
While I recommend City of Ghosts to adults and mature teenagers I also recommend that theaters provide maximum security.
