With 2015’s critically acclaimed Black, a modern-day Romeo & Juliet romance set in the underworld of Brussels, and the international smash hit Bad Boys for Life in 2020, the Belgian-Moroccan film-making duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah have proved their knack for blending social commentary with genre excitement. (We’ll never see what they managed with the cancelled Batgirl film.) Informed by the wave of jihadist radicalisation that has led young Arab men in Belgium to join Islamic State, Rebel is the pair’s most personal, thematically ambitious film yet.
The film explores the complex roots of extremism through the prism of brotherhood. An aimless slacker numbed by cheap thrills such as drugs, Kamal (Aboubakr Bensaihi), travels to Syria with the noble aim of social work only to be forced into IS’s ranks. Stunned by a video in which Kamal executes Assad loyalists in cold blood, little brother Nassim (Amir El Arbi) falls in with a group of manipulative IS sympathisers who promise to reunite the siblings in the conflict zone. The two very different worlds – Kamal’s reality of bloodshed and Nassim’s adolescent naivety – will later collide to shattering, destructive effect.
Though impressive to watch, the technical virtuosity of the action sequences also runs the risk of turning real-life atrocities into glossy spectacle. Added to which the occasional musical bursts where Kamal lapses into rap performance in lieu of conventional inner monologue are more flash than substance.
Nevertheless, the fact that Rebel chooses to indulge in genre experimentation in place of the festival-ready penchant for realism is refreshing. Didacticism aside, the deft juxtaposition of the different forms of violence – Kamal’s physical deterioration on the frontline and Nassim’s psychological changes – hits home hard.
With 2015’s critically acclaimed Black, a modern-day Romeo & Juliet romance set in the underworld of Brussels, and the international smash hit Bad Boys for Life in 2020, the Belgian-Moroccan film-making duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah have proved their knack for blending social commentary with genre excitement. (We’ll never see what they managed with the cancelled Batgirl film.) Informed by the wave of jihadist radicalisation that has led young Arab men in Belgium to join Islamic State, Rebel is the pair’s most personal, thematically ambitious film yet.
The film explores the complex roots of extremism through the prism of brotherhood. An aimless slacker numbed by cheap thrills such as drugs, Kamal (Aboubakr Bensaihi), travels to Syria with the noble aim of social work only to be forced into IS’s ranks. Stunned by a video in which Kamal executes Assad loyalists in cold blood, little brother Nassim (Amir El Arbi) falls in with a group of manipulative IS sympathisers who promise to reunite the siblings in the conflict zone. The two very different worlds – Kamal’s reality of bloodshed and Nassim’s adolescent naivety – will later collide to shattering, destructive effect.
Though impressive to watch, the technical virtuosity of the action sequences also runs the risk of turning real-life atrocities into glossy spectacle. Added to which the occasional musical bursts where Kamal lapses into rap performance in lieu of conventional inner monologue are more flash than substance.
Nevertheless, the fact that Rebel chooses to indulge in genre experimentation in place of the festival-ready penchant for realism is refreshing. Didacticism aside, the deft juxtaposition of the different forms of violence – Kamal’s physical deterioration on the frontline and Nassim’s psychological changes – hits home hard.