Cries from Syria movie review (2017)

Inspired by the Arab Spring that toppled dictatorial regimes around the region, a group of young men spray-painted “It’s Your Turn, Doctor” on walls around the city of Daraa, Syria in March 2011. The “Doctor” was a reference to Bashar al-Assad’s background as a physician, and the seeds of a revolution felt like they were being planted. Sensing the dissatisfaction of his own people, Assad did what madmen in positions of power often do—he responded with brutal, unimaginable force. The boys responsible for the graffiti were arrested, tortured and killed. Their deaths became a catalyst for a greater revolution, which resulted in even more horrifying action from Assad and his people. As protestors marched with roses and bottles of water for the soldiers, people disappeared or were tortured, often returned to their families unrecognizable.

Over the next few years, the Syrian Army would battle with the Free Army and other protestors, turning the West half of Syria into a war-torn battlefield. Portions of the country deemed revolutionary to the regime would be cut off from supplies, leading to deaths by starvation. They would be bombed, often indiscriminately, meaning schools would be destroyed in the middle of the day, when they were full of children. The battle became centralized in Aleppo, the biggest economy of the region, as bombs fell on Daraya and Daraa to such a degree that kids would burn tires near schools to create enough smoke to make them difficult to fly over. And then Assad and his army started using chemical weapons, dropping Sarin Gas and Chlorine on his own people.

As the region became increasingly unstable, ISIS took advantage of the power vacuum, taking over rubble-strewn villages, kidnapping the boys left there into their cause and beating the women. And then Russia and Putin sided with Assad, aiding in the bombing of cities like Aleppo, which has essentially been reduced to rubble and bodies today. Of course, men and women fled, often dying as they tried to get to safety, or being turned away from countries unwilling to accept refugees. And most of the world did nothing.

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