Syn Babilonu

Great movie about iraq I recommend everyone to watch

This is a movie that shows to reality of people living in Iraq. After wars, American invasions. The rich history and lives of common people are destroyed.

If you are interested in an antiwar movie, it's quite good and sad. It's a story about a mother and sons search for there father, during the war. We also get to see both the helpful and greedy parts of the world. The contrast between the sorrow felt by the old mother and the young boy searching for his father is clearly visible.

If you have 1 and a half hour and want a relaxed and sad story based in the real world it's definitely for you..

When we think of Iraq, we picture a war torn country which had seen the worst of a dictatorship under Saddam Hussain, where it spent many years in conflict with Iran, before the UN moved in during Desert Storm to liberate occupied Kuwait, followed by the US led invasion in Desert Storm II. Western media continue to pepper us with news that internal strife continues to this very day with news of suicide and miscellaneous bombings, and I'm sure we're more than curious to want to know about tales from within, rather than agencies from the outside that continue to paint it like a war zone. This is as close as you can go on a road trip from Northern Iraq to Baghdad, onward to Nasiriyah then Babylon.

Son of Babylon deals with the missing generation, and a mother/grandson's search for their son/father, who was taken by force years ago during the Gulf War, and hasn't been heard since. Set three weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussain, the film opens with the young boy Ahmed (brilliantly portrayed by a flute holding Yasser Taleeb) and his grandmother Um- Ibrahim (Shehzad Hussein) beginning their long quest for answers and closure, and it is through their eyes and witnessing their experiences, do we get a glimpse of just how emotionally daunting and physically challenging this quest is, amidst a stunning on location backdrop of an Iraq we never get to see, until now.

Written, directed and lensed by Mohamed Al-Daradji, his story touches on the experiences of three generations of Iraqis, as Ahmed and Um-Ibrahim come into contact with Musa (Bashir al-Majid), an ex-Republican Guard about the same age as what their son/father would be if found, and how his life got filled by the war time atrocities that he had to commit under orders. The narrative puts our trio on a never-ending search as they get bounced and referred to another city where other mass graves have been found, suggesting an inexplicable nationwide genocide that had taken place which accounted for the thousands of people who have disappeared.

The story will also open eyes to how diverse Iraq is, with language and cultural barriers from within the population as they struggle to communicate with one another (usually dismissed fairly quickly when one speaks a different language), only to share common ground in their history of grief brought about through the ravages of war. It's not all doom and gloom all the time as the film does contain some light hearted moments courtesy of Ahmed, and his significance cannot be ignored in a film that closes with a bittersweet end to suffering, and the hope placed on today's youth who have to forge their own way ahead on a long, dusty road of uncertainty. Ahmed demonstrates his street-smartness, haggling abilities and knowledge of his rights, that I think he epitomizes the spirit of the new generation who are competent in holding their own ground.

Travelling the world's various festivals, picking up a multitude of awards and being Iraq's official entry to the Academy Awards next year, this is not an easy film to sit through as it does get a little bit exasperating with the outward show of gloom that will sap your emotional energies, but to the patient viewer it rewards with its beautiful sweeping visuals of a land that most have not had a chance to see, and a poignant story on forgiveness, reconciliation and internal healing that must begin for a nation emerging from its ruins. Recommended!

Directed and written by Mohamed Al Daradji, Son of Babylon is a gritty realistic drama about a young boy Ahmed and his grandmothers journey across Iraq to try and find the boys father. Set in 2003 after the fall of Saddam, Ahmed's father was forced to join the Iraqi army in 1991 and hasn't returned for 12 years, fearing he's in prison or dead the two remaining family members travel 600 miles to try and find out what's happened to him.

The dusty landscape and abandoned ruins of Iraq are a perfect backdrop for this harrowing story, they travel from the mountains to the sands of Babylon hitchhiking rides from kind strangers along the way. The cinematography and scenery in the film are spectacular, they capture the beauty in war torn Iraq when they stumble across Prophet Ibrahims house and mosques along the way. It's easy to believe how isolated the people of Iraq feel as the only thing that has always stayed intact are the roads, it's now a barren land.

Yasser Talib who plays the young boy Ahmed is just brilliant at portraying an abandoned boy who's never known his father. He's comical at times but deals with the films serious nature very well. Shazada Hussein is the Grandmother in the film, she's very believable as a distressed mother in search of her son, her task of looking after her grandson in certain very dangerous parts of Iraq in a tough one. Shazada was actually the only woman to have testified in Saddam Husseins trial so this film must be very personal for her. Together the two characters form a great bond, they annoy each other easily but deep down there is much love and respect for one another.

Throughout the film the two characters keep travelling on buses that break down and are only met with disappointment when they arrive at the town they believe Ahmeds father to be in, but along the way they meet some good people who help and look after them. The Iraq we see in the film is a very different place to the one the media portray. There is even more death and destruction than is reported and the film shows Iraq from it's peoples point of view, not from an outsider looking in, in fact there are barely any troops featured in the film, only a few they have to pass on the road. The only music in the film is when Ahmed plays his flute and the singing of people they meet on their journey, I think this gives the film a more authentic and real feel, it's not glossed by a melancholy soundtrack to how the characters are feeling at any particular point in time.

The slow-paced film overall looks amazing, the acting is brilliant and the plot is strong, you really hope these characters find what they're looking for.

I saw a preview press screening of Son of Babylon as part of Raindance Film Festival.

The first impression was pretty much hopeless. I wondered why they made a movie with such a desperate plot.

But recalling each scene in the movie, everyone in the movie was so kind. The movie starts with a scene that an old woman and her grandson walk middle of nowhere in the desert of Iraq. They are Kurdish. They were severely persecuted under Saddam Hussein ruling. Three weeks after the Hussein regime fell, they started the travel from Kurdistan, northern Iraq, to Nasiriya, southern Iraq, where the woman believes her son is confined in the jail. The distance between Kurdistan and Nasiriya is about 700 km according to the Google map. The first truck driver ignored the boy's exclamation to stop, but he was an exception. All other people who encounter the old woman and the boy are very kind, despite many of them can not understand her Kurdish.

Through the TV and newspapers, our image of Iraq is chaos and hate. Deadly suicide bombings are daily events. Government is still in turmoil. And the conflicts between Arabians and Kurdish, or Sunni and Shi'ah do not end. In this movie, however, people sympathize, help and forgive each other. What does the title "Son of Babylon" mean? Babylon is the name when the country was in the highest glory. The dream of the woman and her grandson to see the hanging garden of Babylon did not come true. But this movie may be telling us to see the hanging garden covered by green leaves, beyond the desperate reality, by helping each other.