“Do you think it will be
war?” young bride-to-be Gûle
(Kajeen Aloush, debut) asks her
older sister. A pause.
“It already is war,” her sister
replies.
So begins “Berbû,” Sevinaz
Evdike’s dazzling directorial
debut, which had its American
premiere this Thursday at the
Ann Arbor Film Festival.
“Berbù,” which clocks in
at just 70 minutes, is a deeply
personal portrait of the ongoing
Syrian civil war. The film is set
in Serekaniye, a Syrian border
town constantly besieged by
neighboring
Turkish
forces.
The
film
opens
in
Gûle’s
tidy
family
home,
where
preparations for her upcoming
wedding are in full swing. The
everyday bustle is brought to
a halt when her fiance and his
family arrive to pose a single
question: Has the war become
bad enough to postpone the
wedding?
The
war
answers
that
question for them. Turkish
shelling begins, driving Gûle
and her family from their home.
As they join a stream of fleeing
residents, the focus shifts to
another young evacuee, Barin
(Barin Resho, debut). She has
just gotten married and is swept
into the desert still wearing her
billowing white wedding gown.
She watches numbly as her
family continues to squabble
while they’re carted off to a
refugee center. At the film’s
midpoint, a final protagonist
is introduced. Nazê (Nebeer
Khanem, debut) is another
resident of the refugee camp
and is young and frequently
petulant.
She
resents
her
situation
and
overbearing
mother and harbors a crush
on a fellow refugee, a quiet
young man whom her mother
desperately wants her to marry.
These three young women
share
the
film’s
attention,
forced to contend with both
the immediate horror of war
and the more subtle discomfort
of womanhood. The film takes
its time, letting viewers rest
with each character as they
struggle to reconcile their new
identities as wives. Gûle hides,
listening to the men of her
family discuss her fate through
open windows and from behind
walls. Barin runs, wandering
alone into the open Syrian
desert as her husband’s family
fights over the technicalities of
the new marriage. Nazê resists,
refusing to help her mother
with
even
the
most
basic
tasks. If she doesn’t accept
her situation, she hopes that it
won’t become real.
Evdike
is
an
exacting
director.
She
uses
small
moments to emphasize innate
human responses to distress.
The weight of marriage isn’t
expressed in outbursts or vows,
but in the knit of Nazê’s brow
as she tries to do her hair in a
shattered mirror and the flash
of sorrow in Gûle’s eyes when
her fiance refuses to look at
her.
Evdike
maintains
this
exacting ethos in her treatment
of the larger war. Children
do handstands against half-
destroyed walls while soldiers
march by. A boy casually throws
up a peace sign to passing cars
as he evacuates his besieged
neighborhood. There are no
guns or tanks — just humanity
continuing to fight for the right
to exist in the midst of intense
destruction.
This
personalized
examination of violence is far
more compelling than a typical
war film. “Berbû” focuses not
on soldiers but civilians —
the people whose agency and
livelihoods
the
surrounding
violence strips away. Evdike
draws parallels between the
collective
dehumanization
of war and the individual
degradations
that
marriage
often entails. Gûle, Nazê and
Barin are caught up in a wave
of refugees united in their
lack of agency. Even within
a
demographic
hyper-aware
of how terrible it is to be
powerless, the young women
are forced to renounce their
autonomy
in
the
name
of
marriage.
“Berbû”
draws
a
simple
conclusion — war emphasizes
the worst parts of society. But
unlike traditional war films,
“Berbû” doesn’t rely on gore
or soldiers. Evdike frames the
tragedy of war through several
young women to show how
communities continue to pedal
traditional beliefs and desires
even when torn apart and
displaced. War does not cause
change; it does not transform
or rewrite. Instead, people
cling all the more strongly to
the things they are certain of —
even if those things are cruel or
antiquated.
War does not free Gûle, Nazê
or Barin. It does not send them
on adventures or make them
stronger. It only more tightly
traps them in a life they will
never fully own — a life that
will play out in an even more
ruined setting than that of
their predecessors.
“Berbû” is a classic war film
in that it condemns violence
as futile and foolish. It is also
a rare piece that combines
that moral with feminism. It
reminds viewers that war is not
just composed of weapons and
violence but also of real humans
— and that those humans
deserve a chance at something
greater than the world in which
that war has trapped them.
This
past
Friday
at
the
University of Michigan’s Fashion
Media Summit, influencer Remi
Bader took the stage. While her
interview was entirely virtual,
presented on the large projector
in the Ross School of Business’
Robertson
Auditorium,
her
message was still clear. Famous
for her “body positive” platform,
Bader has inspired her followers
to reach new levels of confidence
and self-love. The interview lasted
half an hour and was led by MFMS
co-Presidents Talia Potters and
Hannah Shipley.
Beginning with a discussion
of Bader’s background in public
relations
and
marketing,
and
finishing with her hopes for body
inclusivity in the fashion industry,
Potters and Shipley took us through
Bader’s story, in Bader’s words,
with ease. During the height of the
COVID-19 pandemic, Bader was let
go from her job and, like everybody
at the time, downloaded the TikTok
app. This was the first time she saw
“curvy” girls and plus-sized fashion
in a media setting, Bader said.
Inspired by this, and in a search
for more confidence, Bader started
producing content, what she called
“silly” try-on clothing hauls. These
videos she called “realistic hauls”
— where she would order several
outfits from well-known brands
such as Zara, PrettyLittleThing
or Fashion Nova and compare the
size and fit to the website pictures.
Now, she moves beyond realistic
hauls and into topics such as mental
health and her day-to-day life.
When asked how she would
describe her transition into social
media, she firmly said, “I never
wanted to be the ‘spokesperson’
for body positivity. I just wanted
to show my life and be a positive
inspiration.” And that she did.
Several years into her new career,
Bader has amassed a following of
over 2.2 million on TikTok, and
540,000 on Instagram. In the
interview, she mentions how lucky
she feels to have this large of a
platform, and that her “blow up”
was as unexpected as it could’ve
been. She believes that TikTok has
become more saturated with body
positivity content now, relative to
the time of her “blow up.” To her,
timing was everything.
Aside from a social media career,
Bader has also transitioned into
clothing design and line curation.
Her collaboration with Revolve, a
popular online shopping website,
was indeed the first time the
company had up to size 4X in a
line. It all began with one of her
“realistic Revolve hauls” in which
Bader beseeched the company
to “do better.” Upon the video’s
upload, Revolve instantly reached
out to Bader, asking if she would
be interested in designing her
own line. When developing the
line, she started with the design
team, working on silhouettes and
body shapes, with a variety of
loose-fitting and tighter clothing
depending on consumers’ level of
comfort.
Remi Bader at
Michigan’s Fashion
Media Summit: The
epitome of positivity
LOLA D’ONOFRIO
Daily Arts Writer
Courtesy of Remi X Revolve
This image was taken from the official trailer for “Berbû,” distributed by Komîna Fîlm a Rojava
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
4 — Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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WHISPER
“Don’t be afraid of
the space between
your dreams and
reality. ~Belva
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“If you dream it,
you can make it
so.”
WHISPER
Ann Arbor Film Festival 2023: ‘Berbû’ explores
the intersection of war and womanhood
SKYLAR WALLISON
Daily Arts Writer