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The Night Movie Review

The Night is a 1992 Syrian historical drama film directed by Mohamed Malas. It is a very good, emotional watch, but it is not all that palatable to non-Syrian viewers.

The film explores the Arab-Israeli conflict as seen through the experiences of an Arab family in newly-liberated city of Quneitra, headed by a resistance fighter. This conflict was highly important for this country and the movie requires from its audience to at least know the basics about the said conflict. That is all fine and well, but my issue stemmed from the film cramming way too much plot into its two-hour runtime.

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There is a lot to unravel and digest here. Most of it was excellent, don’t get me wrong. But the problem is that some subplots and characters felt rushed and even unexplained. Most of the plot I could definitely get behind, but the second half became overly convoluted and dense in a number of characters and said subplots.

By far the highlight of the picture has to be the central father-son relationship. Boy, was it beautiful. Reminiscing about his father during the previous decades, the movie takes a wonderful look into their paternal relationship with some moments between the two being genuinely touching and sweet. I wished that the film focused even more on this dynamic as it was by far the best part of the movie and its beating heart.

The film takes a hard look into the autocratic regime of Syria and the many problems facing its government and the country’s involvement in this conflict. The movie also deals with the horrible history of Palestine, so yes, there is a lot to unpack here. We also get a glimpse into the various problems that the country continued to face, such as misogyny, child mistreatment, oppression and abuse of power.

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The Night is exceptionally well made, especially for its time and for this country. The fact that Syria got such a good movie in 1992 no less is commendable and I bet that the people from the country watching it must feel pride. The cinematography, score and acting performances all are very strong as is the direction, but the structure and the pacing needed more polish for sure.

The Night explores the Arab-Israeli conflict as seen through the experiences of a Syrian family and the movie offers a lot of plot and history to unravel and digest, way too much in fact as it’s too dense and at times difficult to follow. Still, the film is so well made across the board and highly melancholic and powerful in its passage of time storytelling with the central father-son relationship being the movie’s beating heart.

My Rating – 4