A State Of Passion

Bluesky

He rose to fame as the UK’s most talented surgeon in the field of lip reconstruction, but in other parts of the world, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah is known for something quite different. The glossy plastic surgery marketing which opens this documentary by Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi quickly gives way to footage of crowded, noisy wards full of makeshift equipment and screaming children, where exhausted medical teams work against the odds to save as many lives as they can. This is Gaza, and the sixth conflict there in which Ghassan has volunteered his services.

Doctors and nurses in Gaza have been dying disproportionately fast, often as a result of sniper fire. It’s widely believed that they’re being targeted deliberately. Still, of those who had an opportunity to get out, most have stayed. When hospitals are destroyed, they do what they can in the ruins that remain. Ghassan has a nice house in London, a loving wife and two teenage boys, but he leaves it behind to join them in one of the most dangerous places in the world. There, he has so many urgent cases to deal with that he has to triage where he can, and sometimes to make arbitrary decisions about how gets a chance to live and who is left to die. Corpses line the corridors. They include children, sometimes unaccompanied, their family members dead already. Many people would be broken by this, but for Ghassan, helping them is a compulsion. He does his cosmetic work to support his family. This what speaks to his soul

Whilst the film sets out to explore the psychology that drives people to do this sort of work, what emerges is more complicated, as Mansour and Khalidi plainly experience something similar. It’s difficult to do any kind of work around Gaza at this time and not be consumed by it. Difficult, once one starts, to gauge where the line will be for other people, as tales demand you be told and images to be shown. Some effort has clearly been made to keep the worst from the screen here, but nevertheless, there is a great deal that is very upsetting, and viewers would be well advised to steel themselves before they go into it.

Despite that compulsion, and despite Ghassan’s lengthy experience, which has also included conflicts and disasters elsewhere, he is obviously troubled by some of what he sees. This, he insists, includes white phosphorus damage. He has the skill to diagnose it, but it’s a big accusation, as its use is contrary to international humanitarian law. Still, this is not a film that pulls punches. It might also be considered a form of protection for Ghassan, a means of putting his beliefs on record rather than keeping them all inside his head. He and his wife, Dima, worry that they may be targeted, as they believe that others have been – taken out in order to ensure silence or deter others from speaking out.

Dima feels safer when Ghassan is at home. She has a touching faith in them. Their love story is recounted here like a little bit of sugar to help the medicine go down. She’s Palestinian herself, and recalls family holidays, not long ago, to places now destroyed. We get a handful of images to compare with the ruins there now. She worries about her father, who doesn’t want to leave his Gazan home. Despite everything, she longs to return. To rebuild. It’s essential, she says, not to give up on the land that belongs to her people. We watch a search for possessions buried in the rubble of a bulldozed house. All of this is part of the resistance to cultural genocide.

A State Of Passion is a passionate film. It hits hard, but it isn’t all that finely crafted. It’s difficult to strike a balance, either structurally or thematically, with something so emotive. Nevertheless, it’s an important piece of work, and deserving of its place at Docs Ireland. Some of what it has to say will echo for decades, and nobody who watches it will forget what they have seen.

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