The Bad Son, a poignant documentary in English directed by Ghatfan Ghanoom and written by his wife Wafa Ameli, presents a compelling narrative that transcends the battlefield to explore the defamation, misinformation, and propaganda faced by Syrians in their struggle against the Assad regime. As the Syrian revolution’s initial optimism gradually faded, the Assad regime’s triumphalism, bolstered by Russia, Iran, and Shiite militias, coupled with the international community’s tacit approval, has long been in the ascendant. Deploying gripping footage of innocent civilians, particularly of babies mangled by bullets, shells, and chemical weapons, Ghanoom ruthlessly debunks the regime’s self-complacent narrative that it is fighting “terrorists” and the so-called US-led “cosmic conspiracy.”
The Bad Son interweaves episodes from the director’s life with the broader narrative of Syrian life under the Assad regime, focusing particularly on the revolution’s early stages
At a time when the Arab Spring is a distant, bitter memory and the Syrian revolution seems almost forgotten, Ghanoom’s voice emerges from Finland with a resounding reminder that Syria’s tragedy remains an open wound. Ghanoom, an award-winning Syrian film actor and director, is renowned for his spectacular role in the series Smile, General (2023), which stirred significant controversy among regime apologists and sympathizers.
The Bad Son interweaves episodes from the director’s life with the broader narrative of Syrian life under the Assad regime, focusing particularly on the revolution’s early stages and the regime’s subsequent bloody crackdown. Targeting a Western audience, the documentary highlights the ideological connections between the Syrian regime under Hafez Assad and some of the West’s worst pariahs: Iran, North Korea, the Soviet Union, and Romania under Nicolae Ceaușescu.
The film effectively uses the technique of mirroring, dividing its narrative into more than 20 segments, each titled after a Western feature film or TV series such as “Crime and Punishment,” “Dances with Wolves,” “Apocalypse Now,” “Spartacus,” “Gone with the Wind,” and “Game of Thrones.” The message, while not so subtle, is clear: Free Syria and the West share many values and commonalities, including having the same enemies.
The film’s plot doesn’t progress in a linear fashion; it rather deploys flashbacks to show parallels between past and present
On the autobiographical and biographical level, there are two parallel tracks: Through seemingly disconnected snippets, the film documents and interweaves episodes from the life of the protagonist and that of his Iranian-born father-in-law, Jaber Ahmad, an ethnic Arab Ahvazi nationalist who was initially optimistic about the Khomeini revolution only to be disappointed and end up a refugee first in Syria and finally in Finland. The course of the Syrian and Iranian revolutions, from rosy dreams to bitter disappointment, is mirrored through the intertwined lives of these two men. Under Khomeini, Iran turned into a brutal and repressive theocracy; under the Assads’ regime, Syria turned into a facetiously secular Assadocracy.
The film’s plot doesn’t progress in a linear fashion; it rather deploys flashbacks to show parallels between past and present. For instance, if a certain brutality committed by Assad Junior is mentioned, a similar brutality by Assad Senior is invoked to show the organic continuum of criminality in the careers of both father and son. A case in point is the invocation of the 1982 Hama massacre, for which Ghanoom uses the testimony of an eyewitness (his own mother).
There are also moments of humor, like the clip from Tom and Jerry where Tom telephones three tough cats to come and punish Jerry, inserted after mentioning Assad’s call upon Putin to come to his rescue
Despite its sobering themes, The Bad Son is not a total crescendo of bleak filmscape. It is peppered with occasional clips of satire, such as showing Assad Junior as a ludicrous, gawky young man in military uniform or blathering and stuttering while giving a speech in a formal setting. There are also moments of humor, like the clip from Tom and Jerry where Tom telephones three tough cats to come and punish Jerry, inserted after mentioning Assad’s call upon Putin to come to his rescue. Joyful scenes are included as well, like Ghanoom dancing with a group of friends before leaving Syria in 2012 or hugging his baby girl blissfully sleeping in his arms in their home in Helsinki.
The documentary contains three significant ironies: First, unlike most Syrian actors who remained loyal to the Assad regime despite all the destruction it had unleashed upon the country, Ghanoom broke ranks with fellow actors, thus demonstrating the essential difference between a free and genuine artist and a mere role player or mimicker; second, the titular “bad son” turns out to be a genuinely good son, a freedom-loving, democratically oriented patriot; and third, because of its timing, the film serves as a poignant reminder of the ongoing atrocities committed by the Assad regime at a time when these atrocities, including the brutal deaths of hundreds of thousands, the imprisonment of countless others, and the displacement of millions, are now glossed over, whitewashed, or in danger of being totally forgotten as the world slowly inches towards normalizing relations with the Assad regime and absolving it of its crimes.
Overall, The Bad Son stands as a defiant challenge to global indifference, urging humanity to remember Syria’s ongoing plight and resist the urge to normalize relations with a brutal regime responsible for countless atrocities.
