"The two swimmers"Syrians accuse the filmmakers of distorting the truth

After it was recently made available on the Netflix platform, the movie “The Swimmers” sparked mixed reactions among Syrians, especially since it is one of the first international works to shed light on part of the suffering of millions of Syrians, and refugees in general.

The controversy over the film is very similar to what happens after the release of any work that approaches the Syrian reality after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011 and the wars that followed, as a natural result of the Syrian viewer’s thirst for works that deal with issues that affected and continue to affect various aspects of his life.

Although the film tells the true story of the two sisters, Yousra and Sarah Mardini, it was not without criticism of the way the story was presented, and not the story itself.

harsh immigrant journey

The film topped the viewing lists in several Arab and Western countries, and was well received by Arab public generally.

Writer Mahmoud SaadHe said in a tweet on Twitter that watching the movie differs from hearing the story, pointing out that there is a kind of joy in it despite the horror of the tragedy inside it.

Journalist Bashar Youssef, in a statement to Al-Jazeera, praised the technical level of the film, and said, “I think that the makers of the work succeeded to a large extent in depicting the long journey of refuge that hundreds of thousands went through, and there is no doubt that many of those who watched the film remembered moments they went through during their battle to survive.” Alive”.

Youssef criticized some details that he considered “confusing” to the viewer who does not know the truth about what happened in Syria during that period, explaining that they may have been looking for higher viewership rates, or perhaps the work was originally directed at Western viewers, so the focus was on the issue of immigration only, without making an objective approach to the events in Syria.

accusations of distortion of reality

The feature of non-acceptance overwhelmed the majority of the Syrian opposition, especially critics and journalists among them, who expressed their dissatisfaction with not shedding light directly on the crimes of the Syrian regime, and only referred to the fall of the shells without specifying the party responsible for them, and the scene of the Syrian army checkpoint and the soldier screaming was passed In an attempt to protect the civilians on the bus from the sniper’s bullets, they described this as avoiding specifying the party that causes the killing and displacement of civilians as a result of the bombing of residential areas.

Journalist Talib Ghanoum described the film on his account on Facebook as “very flawed” for trying to manipulate the facts, and accused the filmmakers of lying after they falsified the fact that heroine Yusra Mardini did not win first place, and was not even among the first ranks in the “Rio de Janeiro” Olympic race, while her sister’s story was ignored. Sarah, according to Ghannoum, is the most important story, especially since she was accused of human trafficking and was prosecuted for it.

In a similar situation, the storyteller sees Oday Zoubi The film “failed miserably” in understanding the Syrian revolution, making it the most important component of the neoliberal ideology and the Western right, accusing the Netflix platform of paying millions of dollars in order to “make profits and distort Syria, its revolution and its dreams,” stressing that part of the battles of the Syrians today is against the marginalization of their story. By what he described as bad art in the West.

Journalist Abdel Nasser Al-Qadri noted in article It was reported on the Syria TV website that the film contained incorrect scenes, as the two girls were not subjected to shelling in the swimming pool, and no similar case was documented.

On the other hand, Al-Qadri believes that some of the film’s dialogues focused on representing Syria in the Olympics, and Yusra’s refusal to represent the refugees and that she was forced to do so because it was the only option, and this contradicts her press statements about the importance of her representation of refugees around the world.

In the same context, the Lebanese journalist Myriam Sweidan said in an article on the “Daraj” website that the film attempts to falsify the truth after deliberately ignoring the Syrian regime’s bombing of residential areas, hospitals and schools.

About the movie

The Swimmers, a drama film directed by Sally Al-Husseini, starring sisters Manal and Natalie Issa, James Krishna Floyd, Ali Suleiman, Ahmed Malik, Matthias Schweigher, and Kinda Alloush.

The film revolves around the story of two sisters who suffer from the consequences of the ongoing war in Syria, specifically in the city of Damascus, where shells fall and security checkpoints spread, and then their harsh journey to reach Germany, as one of them succeeds in realizing her dream of participating in the Olympic Games.