Secrets of Karbala: The Crusades in oriental light and glass marionettes #hf16

How can you rewrite an intensely complicated history from a different perspective? By using grotesque glass puppets and not actors. This revolutionary invention was shown at the Holland Festival on 8 June, and can still be experienced there 9 June. In that film, Egyptian artist Wael Shawky takes us back to bygone centuries and shows us an Arab perspective on the Crusades.

The use of glass puppets creates the necessary distance and creates an alienating atmosphere, allowing us to look at the troubled history of the West and the Middle East with fresh eyes. Based on Amin Maaluf's book 'Robbers, Christian Dogs, Women Soldiers: the Crusades in Arab chronicles', Shawky outlines a welcome counterpoint to all Western-coloured historiography.

Flashback

To get an idea of the complex Arab and Islamic history, the film starts with a flashback to the year 680, 70 years after the birth of Islam, and the beginning of the biggest two movements: Shiism and Sunniism. This dichotomy still causes strife centuries later. But by the time the substantive and spiritual differences between the main currents resurface, we are already shooting forward in time.

On to the year 1187: the first Crusades were completed and, from a Western perspective, that means the Holy City of Jerusalem was recaptured from the barbaric Muslims. Good to see that from the other side. The side in which the Crusaders went killing and slaughtering in the Middle East. And in which General Saladin managed to create unity among his troops and thus liberate Jerusalem from the West again. Without bloodshed: he did it by holding Europeans to ransom or sometimes even giving them a safe-conduct. 'We' were even allowed to return on pilgrimage. How different from the marauding, raping hordes of savage Christians who had taken the city.

This perspective is important. Not only because the aftermath is still being felt. But also to see something of nuance in the whole history of the Middle East. Shawky does not do black and white: he also shows that there was treachery and deceit within the Islamic ranks. Power does not unleash the best in people.

Holes

How do you translate such a complex story into a film with puppets? Well, it results in an extremely complex and confusing film, in which the dozens of characters are identified by name and function. It somewhat dizzied me. And although it took me out of concentration at times, I found it valuable to be confronted with my limited knowledge. It pressed me delicately on the gaps in my understanding of history and thus of the world.

The puppets are hand-blown glass puppets with visible strings, a reference to manipulation. Shawky had them blown in Venice, from Murano glass. The puppets are alienating, human, with animal and otherworldly elements. I noticed that the Western dolls are even slightly more grotesque the Oriental ones. Given the perspective, this makes sense. According to the artist, the use of puppets helps to set a mythical and surreal atmosphere, he does so without falling into some kind of thousand-and-one-night idiom. Indeed, there is nothing idyllic about it: the puppets can bleed, the strings turn red. The gruesome, inhumanity of wars is perfectly communicated with the distorted glass heads.

The set-design is as simple as it is effective: in moving circles on the ground, the puppets move around each other, the palaces and the Ka'aba. Funny thing is that the Western kings and crusaders walk around in a kind of swamps. After all, we are talking about the Middle Ages here, when we were enveloped in darkness and battle here and geometry and algebra were developed in the Middle East.

The entire film was spoken in classical Arabic. Now I don't hear the difference, as do, I suspect, the bulk of white Western audiences sitting in the auditorium, but the rhythm of the language and the solemn diction did come across. It provided yet another layer of abstraction, in addition to the obvious layer of puppets.

Secrets of Karbala is not a film you can easily identify with. It is an intellectual exercise, in which I constantly bumped into the limits of my knowledge and lost the thread many a time. The question is whether that is a bad thing. The score of electronic music and traditional Arabic singing accompanied by drums is definitely enough to keep me interested and wanting to pick up the thread. And my urge to acquire more knowledge is whetted.

The Secrets of Karbala is the third part of the Cabaret Crusades trilogy. It would have been nice if the first two parts had also been screened at the Holland Festival. If only out of artistic curiosity: those parts were made with wooden and clay puppets, I wonder if that made identification easier: those puppets were much more human. It might also have helped to get a better grip on an unruly history. More understanding is really better in this case. If only to be able to read the paper better.