Gharabeeb Soud

Black Crows gave me very mixed feelings. I watched the show while in Syria, at the time when ISIS was going down. I was inclined to watch the show, despite the mixed reviews, mostly to exercise my arabic. Still, since I survived the whole thing, I would love to share a few observations with you guys.

The show is trying very hard to be aesthetically pleasing, with modern sleek direction, textbook lighting, good sound, etc. Still, due to all these elements, everything looks very unrealistic. Syria, especially in the rural areas is very dirty, poorly lit, and noisy. Unfortunately the show keeps reminding you that is being filmed in a nice clean studio.

The cast is suffering from the same issue. It is too "clean". You won't find your average ISIS fighter face within the cast. Covering all their faces with make up all the time doesn't help either....

The script is definitely based on research, albeit one of a sophomore university student. All the characters are like caricatures, very single dimensional. All behaviors and events are barely touched to their root cultural or political causes. The show will help the ignorant see few of the horrors that took place in the IS, but will not help someone who was already informed to do anything than visualize them (and the visuals are also borderline acceptable!). Also, throughout the show, there are so many characters behaving so irrationally (no, I am not referring to religious irrationality) that makes you want to jump in the screen and slap them in the face!

All in all, I would suggest the show to those who have some extra time to kill and are interested in watching an arabic production about ISIS. But... If you want to get a better sense of things, stick to your documentaries. If you are looking for quality ISIS splatter, stick to your bestgore visits.

I am only on the first episode, but these are my first impressions:

Glad to see MBC TV make it to Netflix. Good TV told from the Arabic lenses, and deals with sensitive topics such as loss, gender, class, and cultural values. The show provides unabashed realism of the vast gray areas between a secular Islam and fanatic fundamentalism, writ large.

What I like is to see a series that goes beyond typical West VS East, cosmopolitan VS terrorist values, good guys VS bad guys plots associated with today's, pretty much universal, "Other": ISIS.

Also, the show tackles gender and terrorism in a very 2018 way, meaning that the women here are self-aware and possess a sense of personal power and purpose.

Finally, while the dialogue is good, the acting and filmography are so expressive, the vignettes are interrelated, yet tightly constructed, and the suspense is so palpable that the linguistic barrier is quite negligible. Very little cognitive dissonance. In comparison, I don't think a Bollywood series could do this or has done this. Definitely has a Netflix or Amazon series production feel. Overall, very good TV, glad I found it!

A hilarious lampoon of Isis? I hope so--I was laughing my ass off!

Just wow... this is bad on so many levels... bad actors, horrible plot, bad scenery, bad music... Do yourself a favor and don't waste so many hours of your life, like me. Good idea, though, hence the 3 stars.

This series is far from western standards in several ways: plot, direction, acting, photography, etc. This doesn't mean it is bad. It is different. The most important thing is the fact it offers an arabian point of view about ISIS. We usually focus our attention on "our" way to intend ISIS phenomenon and we don't pay attention to what may arabs think about islamic terrorism. This series offers a different point of view, helping us to understand how arabs feel in relation to islamists. I found very interesting the parallel between the point of view of the moderate islamic narrator and ISIS extreme interpretation of the Quran. It shows how also arabians don't agree with such extremist points of view, how they horrorified in front of summary capital executions, tortures and violence in general. Often medias offer us a distorted vision about arabs and thei faith, as if they are all terrorists. It doesn't correspond to reality at all. Too many times we don't (or we don't want...) distinguish between moderate muslims and islamists. This is a great mistakes, and this series helps us to have an idea about the sufference of muslim people forced to live under the threatening of ISIS. That's why it doesn't matter if the plot doesn't follows western standards, the actors are not the best performers on the field, the soundtrack was not written by Danny Elfman, and so on. What really matter is the message production tries to give us. We also have to consider this production is not intended for western people! The main aim of the producers was to show ISIS violence to arabians, and this makes a big difference!