Watch Silvered Water For Free

A Surprisingly Unforgettable Movie!

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

The movie is wildly uneven but lively and timely - in its own surreal way

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

"Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait" is a Syrian documentary film about the Syrian Civil War. The collaboration between exiled Syrian filmmaker Ossama Mohammed and young Kurdish activist Wiam Simav Bedirxan distills footage from "1,001 Syrians" and documents the destruction and atrocities of the civil war through a combination of eye-witness accounts shot on mobile phones and posted to the internet, and footage shot by Bedirxan during the siege of Homs. Must see.

The winner of the Best Documentary award at the London Film Festival this year, Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait is a document of the Syrian uprising as told via found footage from YouTube. It's a conceit borrowed from 102 Minutes That Changed America, a real-time account of 9/11 from amateur footage, but here its unafraid to show the gruesome brutality. The pixelated clips can be utterly stomach churning, shooting right in the middle of the conflict, switching between torture and battlegrounds. If The Act Of Killing had a camera during the slaughters, it would've looked and felt like this. The way they approach the editing with its abrasive music creates an unsettling atmosphere regardless of the content. It offers no history lessons, just the raw visceral destruction and anarchy. But even amongst the horrors of war, the film spares a thought for cinema, evidently the director's primary port of call. It's difficult to see art like that as anything but trivial in the face of chaos but they make a decent point about the camera being a good weapon with the exposure the Syrian uprising has had in the media.It makes you think about the impact technology and social media has had, especially as we sit here on facebook while this is happening. It constantly reminds you about facebook, leaving in the sounds of notifications and text messages. It's deliberately jarring and gut wrenching for it. That's when the narrative switches to the communication and friendship between the co- directors whilst Ossama Mohammed has escaped and Wiam Bedirxan remains in Syria. She watches the world burn while he revels in guilt. It begins a call and response structure of Hiroshima Mon Amour where Syria is their equivalent to post-WWII Hiroshima. The film significantly improves on that change of focus as he tries to argue that life has meaning. He begins analysing the images he receives as if they're intentional and artistic, perhaps almost as a defensive mechanism. Unfortunately the film is very messy in its construction with loose chapters and inter-titles that have no clear intentions. Perhaps this is the best Mohammed could do under the circumstances. If it's abstract art then it doesn't really work. It's far too in your face, but with no apologies.Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait captures the utter hopelessness of what's going on in the world today, with a touch of a slim hope that cinema can help. It's certainly a powerful doc that puts the world on your shoulders.7/10Read more @ The Awards Circuit (http://www.awardscircuit.com/)

I lived in Egypt and Saudi Arabia for 7 years, have completed the course work for a PhD in Islamic Studies, and have visited Damascus twice, and driven through the southern part of the country. So I have a definite interest in the region.We saw this at the Toronto Film Festival in Sept. 2014.What I expected was an insider view (literally) of the Syrian civil war. Now I'm not sure what the directors intended. If they were trying to get support for the anti-Assad forces, this was a miserable failure. If they were trying to produce some sort of arty Andy Warhol flick, I'm not sure they did that either. The film is divided into two halves: the first half was done by a Syrian guy living in Paris. A lot of clips from Youtube, etc. Not much--if anything--new. A lot of repetition of the same images. No coherent story. Just isolated images. Now in their defense, there was something about "1001 Images" in the captions. So if that was the intent, to show a lot of random images, they nailed it. But it doesn't make a compelling movie.The second half switches to some poor woman besieged in Homs (I forget her name, and she does not seem to be listed in the credits under the name used in the film). She has a small camera, and she films deserted, bombed out streets, maimed cats (a LOT of cats), and every once in a while some children. I think there was an interview with a former government soldier, and a brief comment from an old woman. Otherwise, it was just random shots of this and that. Why should anyone care about random shots of this and that? And of course, over an over, the "silvered water" of the title--arty shots of water in a puddle and drops of water running down a window. They didn't belong here. The woman somehow got out of Homs and turned up in Toronto--she didn't explain how she did that (and by-passed the refugee camps). She seems to have a death wish and wants to go back to teach children. I admire her bravery but question her sanity.What this movie could have been (and was NOT): a rallying cry to gather support for the anti- Assad forces. It could have begun with a brief overview of the totalitarianism from the late 60s on, including a quick look at the Aleppo massacre of about 10,000 people about 20 years ago. Then the reasons for the current demonstrations. The demographic and religious breakdown of the country--with maps. It would need to answer this question: If people were aware of the massacre 20 years ago, what made them think they would be able to demonstrate without violent opposition now? Were there any leaders in the early days? Who? What were their goals? How did they organize? How did actual fighting start? Interviews with a cross-section of people about their experience. How can British-educated Assad and his British-born wife justify all this in their own minds? And most important of all--some sort of thread running through the whole movie that would make you care for particular people or for Syria in general. To get excited about something you need to get emotionally involved. Incredibly, the movie that they produced left me indifferent. A wasted opportunity and a shame.