海角大神

The powerful documentary 鈥淭he Cave鈥� could not, alas, be more timely. Directed by Feras Fayyad, who made the remarkable 2017 documentary 鈥淟ast Men in Aleppo,鈥� the new film is about a subterranean hospital in the besieged town of Ghouta in civil war-torn Syria, where markets, schools, homes, and hospitals were targeted by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in a largely successful attempt to get citizens to flee. The primary focus, drawn from hundreds of hours of footage shot between 2016 and 2018, is on the physician Amani Ballour. I鈥檝e rarely seen a more inspiring figure in a movie.

In a culture where women are routinely subjugated, the irony here is that Ballour, along with several other prominently featured female physicians and nurses, worked below ground as equals alongside their male counterparts in a way they would never be allowed above ground. Desperation and expediency leveled the playing field.

Ballour was also the hospital鈥檚 manager, leading to some intense resistance from those who couldn鈥檛 abide a woman in a position of such authority. In one standoff, the husband of a wounded woman tells Ballour that women should only be wives and mothers.

Ballour will have none of it. 鈥淣o one tells me what to do,鈥� she says. She condemns men who use religion as a 鈥渢ool鈥� for the oppression of women. For those rare women whose husbands and fathers allow it, she offers hospital jobs to provide crucial income.聽

She speaks to her parents periodically on her cellphone, and we hear some of the conversations. Her father worries deeply about her. She consoles him with the rightness of what she is doing, even though, privately, speaking of the wounded, she wonders, 鈥淗ow much can I really help them?鈥� and questions why people in Syria continue to have children at all. You can appreciate her concerns. The most powerful images in 鈥淭he Cave鈥� are of the baffled and injured children in the hospital. Their faces sear the screen.

Ballour has the staunch support of Salim Namour, the hospital鈥檚 chief surgeon, who promoted her to the manager鈥檚 job and clearly admires her. He is another of the film鈥檚 extraordinary heroes: In the makeshift operating room, often without access to anesthesia or adequate supplies, he soothes the patients with classical music, such as Mozart鈥檚 鈥淩equiem,鈥� that he streams from his smartphone.

Because he made a documentary about an exiled Syrian poet鈥檚 struggle for freedom of expression, Fayyad in 2011 was imprisoned and tortured for 15 months. Unable to participate directly in the filming of 鈥淭he Cave鈥� because of the siege, he enlisted three intrepid cinematographers 鈥� Muhammed Khair Al Shami, Ammar Sulaiman, and Mohammed Eyad 鈥� and worked remotely with them to shape and edit the footage, which utilizes no voice-over narration or direct-to-camera interviews. The dangers in making this movie are obviously ever-present. Chemical weapons attacks and Russian war planes have reduced the aboveground terrain to rubble and continually threaten the subterranean hospital. The film ends with the hospital鈥檚 shutdown following the Assad government鈥檚 regained control of the region.

This ending should be devastating 鈥� it is devastating 鈥� but what I took away from 鈥淭he Cave鈥� was the resilience of the hospital workers, especially Ballour, who vows to return to Syria when the regime changes. (According to the film鈥檚 production notes, she currently lives in Turkey.) She has said that she agreed to participate in this film because she wanted the truth of what was happening to be known. She is particularly supportive of the young girls she treats in the hospital. To one of them she says, 鈥淲e don鈥檛 have to be ordinary. We have to be something important.鈥�

It is left to her father to offer the most resonant of consolations. 鈥淧eople,鈥� he tells her, 鈥渨ill forget the war at some point but they will never forget you. I am proud of you.鈥澛�

In Arabic and English with English聽subtitles. Rated PG-13 for disturbing war-related thematic content and images.