The Return (Al Aoudeh ( Le Retour))
Qumra Projects
/ Feature Narrative / France, Germany, Qatar / 2022
In Arabic / English subtitles
Rated: This film has not been rated.
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Synopsis
Taysir, a historian in his fifties, has settled in the French city of Marseille with his wife Maryam and their two daughters Judy and Ward. Driven by the desire to build a better future for his country, he returns to Syria in order to move the remains of his younger brother Kamal from the suburbs of Damascus where he was shot as a freedom fighter during the revolution to the north of the country, in ancient Mesopotamia, in accordance with ancestral traditions and customs. In Taysir’s mind, such a symbolic act would represent the foundational stone upon which a future for Syria can be deemed possible.
Halfway through his journey, Taysir meets his closest friend Hassan who reminds him of an aspect of the story he had informed him years ago, namely that his brother had joined an armed jihadist group in the last three months of his life. This “reminder” disrupts Taysir’s journey and turns it into a dialogue between two brothers, the dead one now a burden for the one still living. Not only Kamal’s change of position defeats Taysir’s original project, it also awakens his own guilt of not having returned to Syria when the revolution was still a reality and not yet a failed dream.