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I watched Four Lions and good lord that has to be the most depressing movie I’ve ever seen, the only black comedy worthy of the name, it’s absolutely crushing.
I can’t get over how much Riz Ahmed resembles a hotter Elijah Wood.
just to be clear that’s not why it’s crushing.
A while ago I read a book about french people who had gone to join ISIS and then come back to France and it made me realise that Four Lions, which up until that point I thought of merely as a brillant and dark comedy, is actually a completely realistic depiction of jihadi terrorist i.e they are complete idiots.
I mean there are obviously smart ideologues and tacticians among radical islamists but they’re obviously not the ones who carry out the fighting or the terrorist attacks.
I’m convinced it’s the most accurate representation ever put to film, but it’s also so much more.
(did the Boston bombers watch it?? because either way jesus)
it is REALLY surprisingly accurate. especially lots of little details (some exagerrated, like swallowing sim cards where really they just take the sims out of the phone) but yeah. it exagerrates stupidity for comedic effect but it’s astonishingly accurate.
besides the amazing picture it paints of British Jihadi Lifestyle I think it’s also a fascinatingly well balanced psychological portrayal of the people involved, and that’s what makes it so gutting to watch.
the main axes of the group are between the two leaders, Omar and Barry, and the leaders and the followers, whose names I forget so let’s call them Dopey and DJ.
Barry loves domination, he’s a blustering bully, he can’t resist getting in people’s faces and causing a scene even when he’s notionally trying to stay undercover, he’s desperate to be important and he continually struggles to get anyone to take him seriously and it infuriates him; it’s no accident that he is drawn to the idea of bombing the mosque of all places, ostensibly to stoke a religious war but probably also because they’ve kicked him out in the past for being a massive dick.
Omar leads through inspiration, made easier by the fact that he’s the most handsome, charismatic and quick witted of the group, although admittedly that last attribute is not a particularly high bar to clear. Omar genuinely loves his comrades – and tolerates Barry – and he’s also honestly committed to the idea of real martyrdom, not just for glory in this world but for paradise in the next.
The followers are just looking for acceptance, excitement, brotherhood, and a sense of being part of something bigger.
All of them are shockingly and deliberately ignorant of the world, whether it’s Barry blaming his car breaking down on Jewish sparkplugs or Dopey knowing little of the creed he’s planning to die for, but their bigger problem is a lack of self awareness: they have no conception of where they stand, what they really want in life, or why they do any of the things they do, and that’s what makes the movie a tragic insight into the human condition.
Omar at least is self aware enough to know that they’re rubbish, and he despairs at the realisation that they can never make their plan work, but he’s not aware until far too late that he’s lying to himself about the followers wanting martyrdom, and that’s he’s been manipulating them the whole time to serve his own dreams, just like the manipulation that Barry takes a cruel pleasure in.
The followers also don’t realise until the end that they’ve been passively following Barry and Omar due to the sheer force of personality and their desire to fit in with the gang, and that their own hearts want something different out of life, like the opportunity to go on living it.
The movie shows the danger of abstractions: jihad, paradise, unbelievers, things that weigh more heavily in the mind than the realities of his wife and child, who are not so much characters as simply concrete representations of the choice Omar is making, the life he could have led but is deliberately throwing away.
Another painfully broken relationship is between Omar and his brother, who appears in a few brief but powerful scenes where he misses the opportunity to dissuade him from violence. He is unable to connect with Omar on a human level, and all his religious knowledge comes across as pompous posturing that lacks understanding, designed to reassure himself about his life choices rather than heal the broken bond between them which ultimately leads to their ruin.
Humans given every opportunity to find happiness, instead blundering in the dark.
The stuff with Omar’s family was brilliant.
First you’ve got the obvious thing – visually, and in terms of his beliefs around male and female mixing, Omar’s brother – the pacifist – is on the extreme end of ‘weird foreign Muslim’, while Omar, the terrorist, is clean-shaven and relatable and his wife is an equal partner in taking the piss out of said brother. (There’s a scene where she chases him round the house in mockery of his desire not to be in the same room with her.) This is both kinda unexpected to a lot of audiences at the time and, I’m given to understand, not inaccurate!
But I also like how, for a comedy movie, they were sensitive to the drama and didn’t try to cram character ‘development’ into, say, his wife, that the script didn’t have time for. It’s much more affecting to see in her performance that she supports him, and be aware that we don’t know her reasons..
Red State is a black comedy so dark its labeled as horror. But, it IS a black comedy. Incidentally it’s also about extremist Abrahamic religous communities and the violence they commit, so it’s a surprisingly similar movie in some thematic ways too. So, if you liked Four Lions, you might like Red State too. BTW it’s one of those films that, if you are up for “author chose not to warn” level shit, is better taken cold without reading reviews or otherwise knowing what is coming. That said, there’s definitely some triggers to warn for on it.
Anyways, Four Lions is really good, and yeeeeah I also wonder if the Tsarnaevs watched it too. It would feel too on the nose if it was made after the Boston Marathon Bombings, but it was made before.
interesting. I think i’ll try to watch red state today or tomorrow, that’s a strong reccommendation.
And yeah, regarding the thing @loki-zen mentioned about ‘
This is both kinda unexpected to a lot of audiences at the time and, I’m given to understand, not inaccurate’, while the specific example doesn’t really fit my experience (the extremists do the no freemixing thing more strictly than the ‘traditional’ conservatives), it’s got the right spirit in that usually the western born jihadi types are less sexist and have a more equal relationship with their spouse. And also of course that they often marry equally into the whole thing extremist women.
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