The brave and gripping Belgian film Rebel qualifies under the category of important films inherently not easy to watch or to forget. But in an age when terrorism has been a real, present, and continuing danger, the subject of recruitment tactics of terrorist organizations and exploitation of vulnerable youth spotlights a sad, ongoing reality in the modern world.
To their credit, Rebel directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah — Belgians of Moroccan descent — approach their character case study with an ideal blend of grit and sensitivity.
A chilling portrayal of recruitment into ISIS, and the process of dehumanizing and brainwashing involved in the recruitment of young men, sometimes barely out of boyhood, the film gives human faces and fates to what remains a seemingly remote and abstracted global crisis (until it hits American home turf, as on 9/11).
In Rebel, despite the focus on evils, intimidations, and summary executions taking place as part of the ISIS campaign of chaos and terror, the real emotional center and heroic protagonist is a Moroccan mother living in Belgium (Lubna Azabal). She is desperately seeking to save her sons from the sinister clutches of the Islamic State, risking her life in the process.
Kamal, the older brother (Aboubakr Bensaihi), is a rapper and deejay, filling his rhymes with righteous indignation and anti-Western sentiments, which ironically pave his path into being roped into ISIS ranks in Syria. He attempts to cling to some dignity, distancing himself from the ISIS horrors as only serving as a videographer in the ranks. When he later connects romantically with a nurse, Noor (Tara Abboud), whose family was executed, she chides him: “You’re filming atrocities, murders for their propaganda. Shame on you.”
The tale ramps into higher emotional gear, and with higher stakes of tragic outcome, when the 13-year-old Nassim (Amir El Arbi, in a quietly powerful performance) turns his admiration for his brother into vulnerability and is caught in the crosshairs of the recruitment program. In an epilogue to the film, which pulls away from grim filmic realism and is suddenly retooled into the form of a choreographed rap video, Kamal touches on a root, innocence-robbing condition of the grooming process: “My brother had a joystick and now a gun … that’s your trick.”
Ultimately, Rebel is a reality-based horror film, without resolution, and with humanity still in the lurch.
Rebel shows at SBIFF’s Riviera Theatre through October 5. See https://sbiffriviera.com/ for showtimes.
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