Review: Dugma: The Button harrowing look into the outrage of Al Nusra Front

Dugma: The Button. Courtesy Dugma The Button

Dugma: The Button

Director: Paul Salahadin Refsdal

Three and half stars

Paul Salahadin Refsdal was given the extraordinary opportunity to be a fly-on-the-wall observer while members of Al Nusra Front in Syria prepared to become Al Qaeda suicide bombers.

Focusing mainly on two key subjects, Abu Qaswara from Saudi Arabia and British convert Abu Basir Al Britani, the movie is deeply harrowing – but not for the reasons you might expect.

There are violent scenes of air strikes and vivid descriptions of previous massacres. Still, the most disturbing thing about the doc is not just the extreme horrors it portrays, but the sheer, banal normality of the terrorists’ lives as they plan their outrage against everything civilised.

At times, the film could almost be a family drama, as the men and their comrades gather around the table to share jokes over dinner, complain about the washing up and discuss their favourite recipes. Food is a recurring theme and something all of the men, Abu Qaswara in particular, love.

But just as we are lulled into a false sense of security by the mundane day-to-day routines of these men’s lives, however, we are reminded of the horrible and disturbing act they are about to perpetrate.

Abu Qaswara, for example, is chillingly nonchalant as he demonstrates the procedure for detonating the explosives in his makeshift armoured truck and reveals that he plans to telephone his father for a final chat while at the wheel as the final seconds of his life play out.

One of his colleagues complains about the length of the waiting lists for martyrdom missions.

Both conversations are imbued with the same sense of domestic banality as the washing-up complaints.

There are a few surreal moments, too. Abu Qaswara organises a raffle for local kids, the grand prize for which is a Magic Mop. As Abu Basir reveals his reasons for travelling to Syria to wage jihad, the decision seems to have been largely based on the rainy British weather.

Refsdal keeps editorialising and judgments to a minimum, simply observing and recording. He claims the Al Nusra leadership made no attempt to interfere or restrict his access, beyond preventing him from showing the exteriors of bases and safe houses, or filming certain key members of the group.

The result is an uncomfortable juxtaposition of the pedestrian nature of the subjects’ lives – in most ways ordinary men with families, domestic gripes and a surprisingly childish sense of humour – and the horror of the acts they hope to commit; indeed of the whole situation around them.

The film won the best mid-length documentary award at this year’s Hot Docs Festival. Although clearly not comfortable viewing, it offers a rare chance to take a look at the tragic events inside Syria through an apparently unfiltered lens.