Film-maker Lucas Vernier’s grandfather was a member of the méhariste – the camel cavalry – during the French mandate in Syria, and Vernier traces his footsteps by embarking on his own journey to the Badia desert in 2009. Determined to revisit the places captured in his grandfather’s sprawling archive, Vernier’s documentary lends a tangible vitality to his family history. Once frozen in the frames of black-and-white photos, the Syrian soldiers who served in the camel corps live on in the memories of their descendants; their recollections evoke the open-hearted spirit of the film’s title, a traditional greeting in Arabic.
Providing a visual link between the past and the present, Vernier’s 2009 trip unfolds like a photographic scavenger hunt. Once the figures in his grandfather’s pictures are identified, Vernier reconstructs these compositions by directing his interview subjects to adopt the same pose as their ancestors. The process no doubt serves as a gesture of tribute, but also suggests a lack of introspection on Vernier’s part. Though politically progressive, his grandfather was also an instrument of French imperialism in the Middle East, a complex position which the film barely interrogates. Vernier’s compulsion to reproduce these images neglects to consider the colonialist context in which they were created.
When civil war breaks out in 2011, the film takes a darker turn. Some of the Syrians that Vernier had met died in the bombing; others were displaced. Abandoning the impulse to uncritically resurrect his grandfather’s past, these latter sequences are much more powerful and focused, as they bear witness to the psychological toll of the war and the courage displayed by Syrian refugees. In contrast to this painful reality, the warmth and hospitality felt in the first half of the documentary evokes the fragility of peace.
• Ahlan Wa Sahlan is available from 7 April on True Story.
