Nabil Maleh, Father of Syrian Cinema, Dies at 79

posted on: Mar 1, 2016

By KAREN ZRAICK

The New York Times

Nabil Maleh, who used social realism to challenge authority and became, in many critics’ estimation, the father of Syrian cinema, died on Feb. 24 in Dubai. He was 79.

His death was confirmed by his daughter Ebla Maleh, who said he had recently learned he had lung cancer.

Mr. Maleh’s 1972 film, “The Leopard,” based on a novel by the Syrian author Haydar Haydar, was the first feature film released by the state-run National Film Organization and won first prize at the Locarno Film Festival that year. It tells the story of a lone rebel who defends his village against corrupt local authorities.

The Dubai International Film Festival honored Mr. Maleh with a lifetime achievement award in 2006, calling him “one of the first Arab filmmakers to use experimental techniques, which paved the way for a new cinematographic language.

He left Syria in 2011, as a government crackdown on mostly peaceful protests was intensifying. He never returned to his homeland, which was the subject and setting of almost all his films.

Besides “The Leopard,” his other well-known film is “The Extras” (1993), the story of a young couple trying to keep their affair a secret. It was shot entirely in a small Damascus apartment. In that film, Mr. Maleh used the themes of surveillance and claustrophobia in a society rigidly controlled by both the government and strict social mores to make a larger statement about life in an authoritarian state.

“He made films that were always accessible even if they were profound,” said Christa Salamandra, an anthropologist at the City University of New York who specializes in Syrian media and has written about Mr. Maleh.

Mr. Maleh made about 150 films, including shorts and features. He also worked in television, wrote screenplays and articles, and painted.

His 2006 documentary “The Road to Damascus” was prescient in examining conditions that led to the 2011 uprising. In it, Mr. Maleh’s crew travels around the country interviewing ordinary Syrians, who discuss the poverty and corruption that had resulted in an exodus from rural Syria to Damascus, with job seekers and their families settling in ramshackle housing on the city’s outskirts. The film was never shown in Syria.

Other projects, like “The Holy Crystal” (2008), a 26-minute documentary-fiction hybrid about the Old City of Damascus, emphasized Syria’s cultural heritage, beauty and diversity.

“Syria is a condensed museum,” Mr. Maleh said in a 2007 interview in the Old City. “It is such a mixture and a panorama of history.” He added, “I’m trying to re-establish a human memory regarding this side of Syria.”

Mr. Maleh was born in Damascus on Sept. 28, 1936, to Ali Mumtaz Maleh, a doctor, and Samiha Al Ghazi. As a young man he was outspoken politically, criticizing the government of the Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, which controlled Syria as part of the United Arab Republic. He studied at Prague Film School — he was said to be his country’s first graduate of a European film academy — and returned to Syria in 1964.

Hafez al-Assad took power in Syria in 1971, and “The Leopard” was released the next year, after the Ministry of the Interior had initially blocked it. Shown widely in Syria, it included what is considered the first partial nude scene in Arab cinema, depicting a passionate moment between the film’s rebel hero, Abu Ali, and his wife, Shafiqa, while they are on the run from the authorities. She later takes up arms to help him fight.

Charif Kiwan, a spokesman for Abounaddara, a collective of Syrian filmmakers who oppose the government, said seeing the film as a youngster in Syria was a formative experience for him, offering a “first feeling of freedom.”

“Can you imagine, it was like a mix of political rebellion and also a naked woman,” he said by phone from Beirut, Lebanon. “We discovered politics through the naked body.”

Mr. Maleh left Syria in 1981 after he was beaten by a Foreign Ministry guard when he failed to yield to an official’s car quickly enough. He taught at the University of Texas, Austin, and the University of California, Los Angeles, before moving to Switzerland and then to Greece. He returned to Syria in 1993.

In 2000, Bashar al-Assad took power after the death of his father, prompting hope of reform. Mr. Maleh held gatherings of dissidents at his home during what became known as the Damascus Spring, a brief flowering when many prominent figures called for democratization. The government answered with mass arrests.

After the start of the protests in 2011, Mr. Maleh proposed a new television station focused on political dialogue and talk shows. But, he said in interviews, the government never responded to his proposal. He supported the principles of the uprising, Professor Salamandra said, but never joined any political organization, feeling that none fully represented the Syria he wanted to see.

In addition to his daughter Ebla, he is survived by his wife, Feryal Abedrabou; two other daughters, Zalfa and Samiha Maleh; two brothers, Nazih and Mohamed; and a granddaughter. A previous marriage ended in divorce.

“It affected him deeply, to see his country wounded,” Ebla Maleh said in an email. “It was very painful for him to watch the news or even speak about Damascus without it bringing him to tears. A country so delicate, intricate, so beautiful, full of potential.”