Every viewer will answer the question of how choose it is to intersperse adrama about a Brussels Syrian traveler with song and dance numbers. As well aswhether he goes to Syria of his own choosing to fight Assad or is a playthingof history. And then there is the moral question: is it possible to understandat all the actions of Kamal, hero of Rebel?
Also read an interview with directors Adil and Bilall about ‘Rebel’: ‘ ISfighters looked like us, very confrontational’
Rebel is the new film by the Belgian duo Adil and Bilall. They broke throughin Hollywood with Bad Boys for Life (2020) and return with Rebel back tothe Brussels district of Molenbeek, which also featured in their debut film_black_ (2015). The main character is Kamal, a drug dealer with a penchant forfast motorcycles. He is kind to his 12-year-old brother Nassim and theirmother Leila. But when he runs into the light and the police find drugs attheir home, Leila firmly rejects him.
Kamal leaves for Syria where he first fights against Assad and later isrecruited by ISIS reluctantly. He works as their cameraman but one day ends upas an executioner in one of their violent, professionally shot and slicklyedited propaganda videos. Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah illustrate that Kamalis really good by letting him be nice to the bride bought for him, the YezidiNoor.
Meanwhile, Kamal’s brother Nassim, much to his mother’s chagrin, is sensitiveto a smooth-talking recruiter (“Your brother is a hero”). Does Nassim go afterhis brother, whom he looks up to?
Guts cannot be denied to Adil and Bilall. For example, they make a parallelmontage between a bombed-out hospital in Aleppo and a rap song in a decadentdisco in Brussels. Not subtle, but exciting. Slightly more dubious is theirchoice to film a rape scene as a stylized dance sequence, not to mention asevered head talking about Paradise.
On the other hand, there are strong scenes, such as the moment when motherLeila reproaches the police for not doing anything against recruiters, becausewith every Syria traveler there are “fewer Arabs to keep an eye on”. The duodivides their film into chapters with narrative raps and songs, which serve asinterludes. So it is about “blood shed” – the calm before the storm.
Sometimes the balance is also lost in their style choices. Dynamically filmed,immersive moments are contrasted with less convincing scenes, such as Kamalteaching his bride to ride a motorbike, filmed in the desert against aromantic backlight caused by the setting sun. The brutal Syrian realitybecomes a tribute to a classic here Lawrence of Arabia. Choose or unselect?