The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, March 15, 2017 — 5A

‘Cries From Syria’ gives 
crisis needed humanity

New HBO documentary a laudably sobering look at Syria’s plight

You’ve seen the pictures. 

Two of them, specifically. 
You’ve seen the image of 
three-year-old 
Alan 
Kurdi, 

face down, dead, on the shores 
of a Turkish beach, lifeless 
in a bright red shirt and blue 
shorts. You’ve also seen five-
year-old 
Omran 
Daqneesh, 

painted 
grey 

in 
rubble 
and 

caked with blood 
against the stark 
orange backdrop 
of his chair. It’s 
quite 
startling, 

then, when these images begin 
to move — when the waves 
keep crashing into and passing 
over 
Kurdi’s 
body, 
when 

Daqneesh 
absent-mindedly 

picks at the blood on his face 
and examines his arms and 
feet.

“Cries From Syria,” Evgeny 

Afineevsky’s (“Winter on Fire: 
Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom”) 
new HBO documentary about 
the ongoing Syrian Civil War, 
is bookended by the footage 
from these two viral moments. 
It’s fitting. The youth — and, by 
extension, Syria’s increasingly 
uncertain future — are the 
focal point of Afineevsky’s 
unsparing film, the prism 
through 
which 
he 
frames 

each chapter and political 
development. Children, the 
movie argues, are the ones 
who have lost the most in this 
abhorrent humanitarian crisis 
(one of the world’s largest and 
most urgent), and it’s they 
who stand to gain the most 
if peace is to be achieved. 
In 
the 
documentary’s 

most disturbing scene, the 
aftermath of the sarin gas 
attack in Ghouta is laid bare 
for the audience to witness: 
Teenagers, toddlers, infants 
choking and unable to breathe, 
piles of convulsing bodies 
strewn about a chaotic hospital 
floor, children whose pupils 
have rolled back into their 
heads as their mouths foam 
viciously. 
It’s 
unwatchable, 

horrific, utterly depressing — 
and, at the risk of sounding too 
cliché, morally necessary.

Indeed, “Cries From Syria” 

is, at its most basic level, a 
profoundly 
graphic 
visual 

document of the atrocities 
of war. It is not a political 
film, insofar as its producers 

do not posit a critique of the 
Syrian opposition’s treatment 
of 
religious 
minorities 
or 

suggest the refugee crisis as 
an indirect result of American 
foreign 
policy. 
The 
movie 

is obviously positioned on 
the side of the Syrian Free 
Army, but its point of view is 
purely ground-level; the only 
voices heard in interviews 
are Syrian activists, refugees 
and defected army members. 

Outside 
of 
a 

particularly 
scathing 
segment 
critical of Putin 
and 
Russian 

airstrikes, 
the 

film doesn’t aim to persuade 
viewers 
on 
one 
political 

ideology over the other.

Rather, “Cries From Syria” 

subjects its audience to two 
hours of relentless carnage 
and bloodshed, focusing on the 
war as, objectively, a sickening 
global crisis. It sounds brutal 
to watch — and it is — but as 
the film makes clear, there is 
no other option. You have the 
luxury to gripe about having 
to endure two hours of misery 
on your TV screen — imagine 
that as your everyday, lived-in 
reality.

In 
fact, 
what’s 
most 

remarkable about Afineevsky’s 
documentary is that, well, it’s 
not really his. The footage is 
almost entirely amateur video 
from activists and citizen 
journalists as the events took 
place, and consequently, the 
film doesn’t pretend to be 
concerned with artful camera 
angles or an overproduced 
score. Save for what one 
assumes 
was 
a 
grievously 

difficult editing assignment, 
the documentarians recede 
into the background, silent, 
instead letting the cruelty of 
war and those who suffered 
— and still suffer — speak for 
themselves.

And as the film is structured 

chronologically, 
the 
final 

chapter ends, elegantly, with 
an honest look at the refugee 
crisis in our current political 
context. Each chapter, from 
Al-Assad’s appalling cruelty 
in Ghouta to ISIS’ barbaric 
takeover 
of 
Raqqah, 
has 

constituted a broad, forceful 
argument 
to 
bolster 
this 

declaration: 
A 
piercing 

portrait of families stranded, 
separated, 
displaced 
and 

utterly, completely abandoned. 

There are no easy answers, but 
it’s clear compassion is the only 
way forward. Yet as thousands 
of women and children are 
rejected, rounded up, or forced 
on to the streets by supposedly 
developed countries, we hear 
testimonials from a number of 
young orphans. Their families 
ripped apart, these children 
have no other outlet with 
which to air their titular cries.

It is sobering, to say the 

least, to confront your own 
inaction. Once you remove 
political 
inclinations 
and 

theorizing from the equation, 
you are left with nothing 
but a stark portrait of people 
less fortunate than you, and 
for whom you have done so 
shamefully little to help. What 
Syrian children, what Syrian 
women, what Syrian men, 
what all victims of the Syrian 
Civil war have endured is, for 
the most part, a concept in 
the abstract for many of us, 
a reality so far removed from 
our own that to even consider 
the possibility of a government 
using chemical weapons on its 
own citizens is to entertain 
the ludicrous. When the dust 
settles, then, when the picture 
is clearer and the gasbag 
rhetoric deflated: We will be 
remembered for a systematic 
dehumanization of a people 
who have done nothing but 
suffer; 
we 
will 
celebrate 

whatever supposed progress 
the world makes in the coming 
years, and it will be irrevocably 
tainted by the unequivocal 
shame of Executive Order 
13769; 
we 
will 
confront, 

without pretense, our refusal, 
both collective and individual, 
to fight for children who could 
be our own but, unfortunately, 
whose 
names 
sound 
too 

different and whose prayer 
rugs look too Middle Eastern; 
we will be forced to reckon 
with the profound idiocy of 
categorizing refugees as the 
terrorists they so desperately 
seek shelter from; we will, 
eventually and much, much 
too late, come to terms with 
the sadistic moral calculus 
our leaders feel the need to 
compute to determine who 
is worthy of safety and who 
is deemed a threat to this 
ethically 
bankrupt 
nation. 

The children of Syria have 
suffered, and we have ignored 
them; the cries have fallen 
on deaf ears, and indifferent 
hearts.

HBO

NABEEL CHOLLAMPAT

Senior Arts Editor

Snarky Puppy to take on Hill

Eclectic, 
funk-pop, 
jazz 

quasi-collective Snarky Puppy 
is about to inject some soul into 
Ann Arbor.

The band itself was formed 

in the college town of Denton, 
Texas while members were 
attending 
the 

University 
of 

North Texas.

 “I was writing 

music 
that 
sat 

somewhere 
between 
jazz, 

pop, 
and 
God-

knows-what, 
and asked 9 of 
my 
friends 
to 

play it with me 
every week,” wrote Michael 
League, bassist and bandleader 
for Snarky Puppy, in an email 
interview. “Things really just 
snowballed from there.”

Now based in Brooklyn, the 

group has evolved to grace the 
international landscape with 
its innovative sound.

“I 
find 
inspiration 
in 

many, many different musical 
traditions from around the 
world,” League wrote. “Each 
one 
teaches 
me 
something 

different. Piazzolla tells me to 
wear the emotion on my sleeve. 
Sufjan Stevens tells me never 
to show it. Stravinsky tells me 
to explore the entire universe 
of harmony. Ali Farke Touré 
tells me that two chords is all 
you need (if that). The whole 
universe of music is constantly 
offering you food if you’re 
hungry for it.”

With strands of everything, 

nothing 
and 
yet-to-be-

discovered melodies, Snarky 
Puppy 
rests 
in 
profound 

instances of utter originality, 
separating them from other 
contemporary 
instrumental 

groups.

The 
band 
is 
big 
(both 

literally 
and 
figuratively), 

consisting of instrumentalists 
Michael League (bandleader, 
composer, bass), Bill Laurance 

(keyboards), 
Justin 
Stanton 

(trumpet, keyboards), Shaun 
Martin 
(keyboards), 
Cory 

Henry 
(keyboards), 
Bob 

Lanzetti 
(guitar), 
Mark 

Lettieri 
(guitar), 
Chris 

McQueen 
(guitar), 
Mike 

Maher (trumpet), Jay Jennings 
(trumpet), Chris Bullock (tenor 
saxophone, 
flute, 
clarinet), 

Bob 
Reynolds 
(saxophone), 

Nate 
Werth 

(percussion), 
Marcelo Woloski 
(percussion/
drums), 
Keita 
Ogawa 

(percussion/
drums), 
Robert 

“Sput” 
Searight 

(drums), 
Larnell 

Lewis 
(drums) 

and Jason “JT” 

Thomas (drums).

An 
eccentric 
force 
of 

sound, Snarky Puppy recently 
won their third Grammy in 
February, taking home “Best 
Contemporary 
Instrumental 

Album” for their 11th record, 
Culcha Vulcha. Their music 
has no concrete destination, 
yet it hits every dot on the 
map. Spontaneous, carefully 
practiced, huge and miniscule 
all at once, their sound is one 
like no other.

“We 
never 
expect 
to 

win 
awards 
because 
we 

were unknown for so long. 
Although it doesn’t make you 
a better band, it creates new 
possibilities creatively. People 
trust and value you more, so the 
crazy ideas that we’ve always 
had in our heads can actually 
become reality. That’s what 
I’m most grateful for,” League 
wrote.

Propelled by their deserved 

recognition, the group isn’t 
afraid to take chances. They 
use their live performances as 
a time to delve into what makes 
their music so invigoratingly 
distinctive.

“One of my favorite things 

about Snarky Puppy is the 
way in which we improvise 
as a group,” League wrote. 
“The same song can be almost 

unrecognizably 
different 

from night to night based on a 
single thing that a single player 
contributes in a single moment. 
Everyone’s 
ears 
are 
open, 

receptive 
to 
the 
subtleties 

floating 
around 
the 
stage 

from each individual player, 
but 
without 
disrespecting 

the essential content of the 
composition itself. This allows 
us to consistently deliver the 
emotional content of the songs 
each night while allowing the 
music to grow and breathe, 
creating 
a 
unique 
musical 

experience 
each 
night 
(for 

better or worse!).”

League’s 
personal 
favorite 

songs 
to 
perform 
live 
are, 

“the 
ones 
that 
have 
the 

strongest melodies,” he wrote. 
“‘Shofukan,’ ‘Thing of Gold,’ 
‘Sleeper,’ ‘Flood’–– tunes like 
that. I feel that a good melody 
never gets old.”

Deeply 
passionate 
about 

their work, the group has an 
undeniably 
genuine 
nature. 

They understand their roots and 
challenge themselves out of a 
pure love for what they do.

“The band started much more 

acoustic, much jazzier. We were 
white college students from the 
suburbs who had grown up in 
garage rock bands and got swept 
away by jazz,” League wrote. “I 
think this is evident in our first 
few albums. But when we started 
playing on the predominantly 
black gospel/R&B scene in Dallas 
(and when people like Bernard 
Wright, Robert ‘Sput’ Searight, 
Shaun Martin and Bobby Sparks 
joined the band), the sound of the 
band changed dramatically. It 
got funkier. We started focusing 
more on groove and melody 
rather than complex harmony. 
But I think the most important 
change was that we became 
more 
communicative, 
and 

consequently, more accessible to 
audiences.”

Fearlessly 
exploring 
the 

limitlessness 
of 
their 
own 

abilities, Snarky Puppy is set to 
share their passion with Ann 
Arbor tomorrow, March 16, at 
Hill Auditorium.

FILM REVIEW

“Cries From Syria”

Documentary 

HBO

INTERESTED IN WRITING FOR ARTS?

Email arts@michigdandaily.com for an application. 

GROUNDUP MUSIC

ARYA NAIDU

For the Daily

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

UMS presents 
“Snarky Puppy”

Hill Auditorium

Thursday March 16 

@ 7:30 PM

$12 - $20 Students, 
$30 - $50 Adults

SINGLE REVIEW

Frank Ocean has made it. If you 
didn’t believe that after Channel 
Orange, you do now after Blonde 
took over the world, sound-track-
ing that last hour of every party 
you’ve been to in the last seven 
months. He’s created a niche that 
few knew we needed, a mellow, 
brooding croon that fits better on 
midnight drives than the dance-
floor. Ocean has become a pop 
titan with only one true radio hit, 
now bigger than most straight-
edge pop artists. He is the new 
commercial.
You can recognize this on “Cha-
nel,” his first solo single since 
Blonde. The track is immediately 
recognizable as Ocean’s, the pen-
sive piano coupled with a mov-
ing, rhythmic syncopation that 
he mastered so well on Channel 
Orange. Though he left that pair-
ing behind a bit on Blonde in favor 
of more guitar and synth, it still 

sat beneath the surface of each of 
those tracks, and “Chanel” offers 
the perfect bridge to easily under-
stand how Orange and Blonde are 
two sides of the same coin. It’s 

also one of his most assured vers-
es in a while, more reminiscent 
of his verse on Earl Sweatshirt’s 
“Sunday” — “I mean he called me 
a faggot / I was just calling his 
bluff / I mean how anal am I gon’ 
be when I’m aiming my gun” — 
than most of the poetic muses on 
Blonde, which ruminated on love 
and loss.
On “Chanel” he dives into the 
theme of duality that he devel-
oped on Blonde, asserting that he 

“sees both sides like Chanel,” a 
reference to the two-sided Cha-
nel logo. He paints a beautifully 
jagged and seemingly contradic-
tory portrait of images that never 
stop to reassess, only to march 
on. Many have made the over-
simplified connection that this 
refers specifically to bisexuality, 
even though Ocean has publicly 
shirked that term. That ignores 
the dynamism that Ocean has 
long discussed, the power of 
ambiguity. He has always refused 
to be placed into a category.
“Chanel” is no different, and like 
all of his tracks, exists on a plane 
of its own. It, like Ocean himself, 
resists easy classification, clear 
only in the power to mesmerize — 
the power of perfection.

- MATT GALLATIN

“Chanel”

Frank Ocean 

Blonded 

BLONDED

