The Swimmers
Hoping to represent their country at the Olympics, two Syrian sisters attempt to escape to Europe in Sally El Hosaini’s heart-pounding true-life drama.
An incredible journey: Nathalie Issa, Akuc Bol, Manal Issa and James Krishna Floyd
Times of crisis create both angels and demons. There are those that spot an opportunity to make a quick buck at the expense of others’ misery. And there are those that step up to make their lives count for something. And then there are those in the middle: those who can perish or endure on the brutal blade of history. Sally El Hosaini’s The Swimmers focuses on all three. Above all, though, it is the true tale of two Syrian sisters whose father Ezzat Mardini (Ali Suliman) trained each of them rigorously in the hope of Olympic glory.
The film opens in 2011, in the midst of a time of hope and opportunity in modern Damascus, where ambition rubs shoulders with modern dance music and social media. And then, four years later, Putin’s bombs wipe the smile off the face of Syria. Even in the film’s early scenes, there are two moments that are so powerful that they are unlikely to be forgotten. A nightclub dance sequence plays out on a high-rise balcony where the glitterball and strobe lighting blends in seamlessly with the silent, unseen airstrikes in the night sky. The year is 2015, the song is Elephanz’ ‘Time For a Change’ and the skyline of Damascus begins to glow in the light of a terrible conflagration. The next haunting scene is when Yusra Mardini (Nathalie Issa) has won a place in a qualifying competition and is speeding ahead of the swimmers behind her. Then, oblivious to everything around her, she propels to the finishing line to find herself face to face with an unexploded bomb gently sinking to the bottom of the pool.
What follows is an epic journey that is at times terrifying and unbearable to watch as Yusra and her sister Sara (Manal Issa) set off to escape their homeland, in the hope of realising their Olympic dreams. With over thirty million refugees worldwide, there are just as many incredible stories to tell, but not all of them culminate with such emotional resonance. With just one feature to her credit, the low-budget My Brother the Devil (2012), the Welsh-Egyptian Sally El Hosaini draws on all her talents for documentary realism. She has both a great eye and a great heart, and with the cinematographer Christopher Ross at her side, she has created an urgent, fluid yet pictorially striking experience. The real-life sisters Nathalie and Manal Issa project a natural chemistry as the real-life swimmers, engendering a turbulent rapport that is tested in the teeth of unimaginable horrors.
Empowered by the twin engines of fear and ambition, Yusra Mardini carved out an extraordinary life. Sally El Hosaini’s film, written in collaboration with the absurdly prolific Jack Thorne, attempts to give her journey shape, only lapsing into convention in the final lap. But the passage there is so emotive and remarkable that one can but forgive its recourse to the mainstream. The Swimmers certainly deserves mention in the same breath as Cary Joji Fukunaga's Sin Nombre (2009) and Ai Weiwei's Human Flow (2017), both outstanding testaments to the refugee experience.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Nathalie Issa, Manal Issa, Ahmed Malek, Matthias Schweighöfer, Ali Suliman. Kinda Alloush, James Krishna Floyd, Nahel Tzegai, Elmi Rashid Elmi, Akuc Bol.
Dir Sally El Hosaini, Pro Eric Fellner, Tim Bevan, Ali Jaafar and Tim Cole, Ex Pro Stephen Daldry, Screenplay Jack Thorne and Sally El Hosaini, Ph Christopher Ross, Pro Des Patrick Rolfe, Ed Iain Kitching, Music Steven Price, Costumes Molly Emma Rowe, Sound Glenn Freemantle.
Working Title Films-Netflix.
134 mins. UK/USA. 2022. UK and US Rel: 23 November 2022. Cert. 15.
