‘Simple as Water’ Review: Family Ties That Spread Around the World


Megan Mylan’s latest documentary takes the humble idea of ​​telling the candid and humane stories of Syrian families affected by the civil war in their home country, and does so on an unmistakably ambitious scale. Filmed over five years in five different countries, “Simple as Water” is far from simple when it comes to its technical achievements, combining familiar immigrant narratives in ways that still manage to surprise and amaze.

The film concludes with short stories about Yasmin, a mother of four, who lives in a refugee camp close to the Athens shipyards, as she struggles to reunite her children with their father in Germany. Her story offers an optimistic streak to Mylan’s other subjects, which offer a much more devastating and ambiguous look at the struggles of trying to make a new life in an unusual place. In Turkey, a single mother who doesn’t have time to care for her children tries to take them to an orphanage, but her eldest son – a 12-year-old who takes on the role of caretaker while she’s at work – resolutely refuses to go.

In Pennsylvania, a delivery man named Omar applies for asylum for himself and his brother. Through cascading revelations, we learn that Omar’s brother is not just an amputee, he appeared on CNN as a child when his leg was blown off in a rocket attack in Syria.

These stories avoid stereotypes by lingering in their characters’ everyday, humble routines: after-school basketball games, a sunset walk in an orchard, making a makeshift toy from a string, and a milk crate.

The reach of Mylan and his team is remarkable on the political as well as the personal front – one episode set in Syria was filmed with the help of two women from Damascus, known by pseudonyms. One of the more contemplative moments in “Simple as Water,” which combines Mylan’s thoughts on parenting with the uncertainty of a nation’s future.

as simple as water
Not rated. Arabic and English, with subtitles. Duration: 1 hour 37 minutes. In movie theaters.



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