'The Cave'
A documentary about the plight of people in Syria, battered by the constant barrage of Assad’s regime and their Russian allies, is nobody’s idea of fun. But if you need a real story about resilience and hope in such bad times, “The Cave” demands a viewer’s attention.
Director Feras Fayyad knows this territory well. The Syrian native won top honors at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, an Emmy, and an Academy Award nomination for his documentary “Last Men in Aleppo.” He missed the Oscar ceremony, though, because his visa was rejected as part of President Trump’s travel ban on several mostly Muslim countries.
In “The Cave,” Fayyad goes to Al-Ghouta, a city on the east side of Damascus that regularly is bombarded by Syrian and Russian warplanes. Deep in the city is an underground hospital, where the wounded are brought to be treated and given shelter in a network of tunnels that honeycomb the city.
At the center of the action is Amani Ballor, a doctor who manages the hospital. In the United States, she might be still considered a medical student, but in Syria, she’s one of the few doctors still there.
Besides dealing with the steady stream of wounded patients, a great many of them children, Dr. Amani must contend with the fear of warplanes overhead, the regular shortages of supplies, and the callous sexism of men who think women shouldn’t manage hospitals but stay at home and clean house.
Still, there are small moments of joy and hope. She has a solid working relationship with Dr. Salim, the hospital’s surgeon, who fills the operating room with classical music playing on his iPhone. And she shares smiles with the head nurse, who is also responsible for cooking vast amounts of rice to keep the hospital staff going.
Those moments are fleeting, though, and the horrors of Syria’s war — a war Trump recently withdrew from, leaving people like Dr. Amani to the tender mercies of Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin — grind on. “The Cave” is a stark reminder that leaders wage war, but people on the ground pay the price.
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‘The Cave’
★★★1/2
Opened in select cities; opens Friday, November 15, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated PG-13 for disturbing war-related thematic content and images. Running time: 95 minutes; in English, and Arabic with subtitles.