Film Review No. 1 A Should-be Oscar Nomination: The Swimmers
How true stories of strength got snubbed at this year's nominations
Being a filmmaker, I watch a lot of films but that is often a consequence of being in an editing room. I admit I do not always make time to watch the work of my contemporaries. But a combination of the windy, grey wintery weather and the announcement of the Oscar nominations gets me inspired to begin a movie marathon.
I’m going to be sharing my reviews on my substack for paid subscribers, but to start off this stack of film reviews I will be making a couple of reviews free and with good reason - they’re the should be oscar nominations in my opinion and deserve recognition beyond the Academy starting with The Swimmers.
This is technically a biopic of the Olympic swimmer from Syria Yusra Mardini, but it’s a film filled with all the parts I feel are needed for a ‘Best Picture’ and I’ll tell you why.
The film opens with some simple everyday scenes of a community swimming pool, the interior of a large home apartment, and a rooftop nightclub. Just sharing those few descriptors, anyone could easily place this film as taking place in a major European city but in fact it opens in pre-civil war Syria.
This is an important part not to be missed, and neither are the scenes that immediately follow showing Syria as a relatable Mediterranean environment. The main characters Yusra and Sara are getting on with life around the war until a dear friend is killed and the war begins to hit close to home. Sara’s dedication to swimming is ambivalent but Yusra, the younger sister is as determined as ever to fulfil her father’s dream for her of swimming in the Olympics for Syria until the war becomes unbearable for competing, training, even living.
“Your planes can’t bomb our dreams”
Sara begins looking for a way out, and she sees a friend on social media who’s been able to reunify her family because she was under 18 and made it to Germany. She’s over the age of 18 but Yusra is 17 and there’s hope that if they can get her sister to Germany she can follow the same path, despite Yusra’s resistance to travel and give up the things she loves: her family and swimming.
There’s some very relevant points in this film to me as a migrant and firstly that is the role of social media. It is a powerful tool, as it was for Sara to help her accept the imminent dangers of the war but it also does a disservice to anyone who has migrated. In a single photograph, you miss the miles travelled, paperwork filled, and countless hours of anxiety waiting a decision. All you see is that one photograph that gives hope to someone else that it’s possible, and it can ignite anger in those that feel migrants are undeserving of their new place of belonging. Those issues are not covered in the film, but merely a reflection I had while watching it.
Sara and Yusra begin their journey like many flying to Istanbul on a commercial plane, and so begins the transition of the normal life they knew before to the vulnerability that comes with being a migrant. Mid flight, their cousin tries to jokingly rename them as refugees to which Yusra immediately replies,
“We’re not refugees. We have a home.”
A dichotomy which is questioned throughout the rest of the film, as well as the way in which they identify with Syria. Yusra never wants to give up on her dream of swimming for Syria even being outside of it, but what Syria would she be swimming for? The childhood memory she held or the one dropping bombs and killing her friends? To be Syrian is not an easy identity today, and after last week has now become even more complex with the earthquake.
Aside from a well written and very well acted film, an authentic mix of Arabic and English (I’ve been taking Arabic classes and really enjoyed hearing both), this film has stunning underwater camera work. Inside olympic pools, the war is brought inside and outside in the open ocean the achievements inside those pools are brought to the surface and done so with some incredibly well shot scenes and transitions. If it didn’t earn a best picture nominee, this most certainly was snubbed for a best cinematography nominee.
I really want you to watch this so I won’t go into the details of the ending, but I can say in a film where hope is like an eluding main character it does shine through at the end so is worth the watch.
My Recommendation of how to watch: It is available on Netflix and is a long film, it might be good to watch while travelling since so much of it does take place while travelling but there are subtitles so if you need a bigger screen it will only add to the beauty of the film.
What to eat while watching: I have a fondness for food, so with film reviews I’ll be making food and cook book recommendations as well. No middle eastern experience is complete without food, and it’s food that lends itself well to snacking during a film. Grab yourself some hummus and babaganoush, along with pita or pita chips, and falafel. Hummus is actually quite easy to make and I do make it often, it just takes time shelling the chickpeas but if you’re good at multitasking and enjoying the film at home, it could make for a perfect film and food experience. I wanted to recommend #CookForSyria but that book seems to now be out of print, and we are still a couple months away from the release of a new book by Imad, a Syrian who travelled to London and who’s cooking I’ve had the honour of enjoying over the years. So until that book is released I recommend trying Sirocco for some easy snacking middle eastern food to enjoy with this film.