113. Notturno; movie review

 

 

NOTTURNO

Cert TBA

100 mins

BBFC advice: TBA

Tears filled my eyes as the young boy explained the drawings on the wall of his classroom.

They depicted the brutality which was meted out by ISIS to women of the Yazidi religion on the border between Iraq and Syria.

Red crayon had been used to mark the blood which signified that the victims had been shot, stabbed or beheaded.

It was not made clear whether the boy's stammer was the result of witnessing such atrocities.

The rehabilitation of child victims of civil war was the stand-out episode in Gianfranco Rosi's much-lauded Notturno.

But there were other harrowing moments such as the visit of a mother to the jail cell where her son was tortured and killed and another who is listening to desperate phone messages from her daughter who has been kidnapped by ISIS terrorists, demanding a ransom.

Rosi's commitment to spending three years on the borders of Iraq, Kurdistan, Lebanon and Syria elicited these shocking moments.

He has strung together a sequence of clips, many of which are so close to the frontline that gunfire can be heard clearly in the background.

Interviewed after the film, the director says that he strongly believes that the film should flow freely without comment.

I disagree. It would have helped the viewer's understanding to at least have had dates and geography attached to each segment.

As it was, I could not even work out which country each piece of footage was recorded.

It was a pity this became a distraction because, as I have suggested, there are scenes during Notturno which will live with me for a long time.

But there are also some during which I could have made a cup of tea and missed nothing.

It is a shame the movie was diluted by them and by lack of overall explanation.

Reasons to watch: A spotlight on the people the world forgot

Reasons to avoid: Needs a better description of what we are seeing

Laughs: None

Jumps: None

Vomit: None

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 7.5/10

Did you know?  In 2015, ISIS was believed to be holding 3,500 people as slaves, according to a United Nations report. Most of the enslaved were women and children from the Yazidi community but some were from other ethnic and religious minority communities.

The final word. Gianfranco Rosi: "I still have a knot in my throat, as I went through so many things, moments where my life was in danger, with people that I never met before, who became my assistants and my best friends…" Cinema Scope

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