“A Broken House” is a documentary directed by Jimmy Goldblum that highlights the story of Mohamad Hafez, a Syrian native that moved to the US on a single-entry visa to study architecture and was not able to return home. Facing his fate, he channeled his homesickness in his artwork, and started producing miniature sculptures of his hometown, in order to build the “Damascus of his memories”.
“If you can’t get home, why don’t you make home”. Telling the story of the human being that lived within, the architectural project gained a political dimension after the eruption of the Syrian civil war, portraying the extent of the destruction suffered by the city, humanizing refugees, and sharing their stories.
The film starts in the architect’s workshop, where the protagonist is talking about the cathartic and therapeutic role of art. “When we leave, we give up on so much”, he states. The struggle of leaving comes hand in hand with an inner fight that is immersed with notions of defeat and loss. “When we leave, we miss birthdays, weddings, funerals … we give up on so much, on being in each other’s life”, he adds.
When the Syrian war erupted, Hafez, like many others, started living a dual life, torn between two realities. He was constantly monitoring the tragic situation back home while keeping a straight face and going on his daily tasks. Questioning what could be done, he channeled his raging emotions through art and decided to translate what was happening in architecture.
Cultural and Architectural Losses
Instead of sharing images of dead bodies, because as Mohamad puts it “how many can you see”, the architect is representing an unfiltered reality through his models, so that people can fully grasp the amount of destruction, whether it being the destruction of life, heritage, or identity. “The way the Syrian War was covered in the United States was to focus on the grotesque imagery. Violence as a way to build empathy. This barrage of horrific imagery was re-traumatizing for refugees and immigrants whose stories were ostensibly being told. I wanted to make a film for those communities, to give space to their sadness, their longing for home” explains Jimmy Goldblum, director of the documentary.
“If you want to wipe a nation’s history, you wipe their architecture”. In this war-torn country, buildings that have been standing for years and years, disappeared in a fraction of seconds. The built environment that shaped one generation after another vanished with one inhumane decision. The city, this complex mixture of layers engraved in collective memories, was no longer standing. Practically, all the legacies that civilizations had left behind, dissolved, wiping out society from existence.
Homesickness
Hiraeth, initially the title of the documentary, is a Welsh word that defines a state of extreme homesickness to a homeland that is no longer existing or has never ever existed, describing a deep longing for something that is gone. The documentary explores this complex mixture of yearning, melancholic nostalgia, and intense desire for the past, which often come with an undisclosed understanding that what was once there, will never be, and that one will never have the object of desire. As the director puts it “the film speaks to the complex ways that when you're trapped away from home, your memories are all that you have; but your memories may stay locked in place, while your home is ever-evolving”.
In fact, the word “nostalgia”, associated with the sentiment of loss and displacement, is also a romance with one’s own fantasy, according to Svetlana Boym, the Curt Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. Related to the relationship between personal and collective memory, nostalgia “tends to confuse the actual home with an imaginary one”. In other words, people end up romanticizing a reality, falling in love with ideas and memories that highlight mostly how they remember or imagine things. It’s bitter-sweet. This subjective interpretation of what once was there becomes a collective concept of a diaspora that was, in one way or other, forced to leave, but that is still holding on to the dream, the dream of returning.
“Whatever happens to everybody, happens to me”. The family, in the film, like so many other Middle Eastern families, is scattered around the globe, not having been under one roof for so long. The different situations of the members of the family highlight a universal struggle faced by separated households: the mother figure that cannot survive outside of her country, the son that doesn’t have the choice to go back, and the father that joined his family abroad but that cannot dissociate from the reality of the country.
What makes a home?
“Nothing tastes like back home”, states the mother of Hafez. Once a home is denied, one's attachment grows. This begins to manifest in every single detail, such as statements that argue that food back home is the best. Is it really a question of the food, or is it because food connects people to home? But what makes a home in the first place? Home, more than just place, is an emotional idea, often associated with the saying “home is where the heart is”. Embedded in human consciousness, home is related to people, to families, and to memories. Home brings us together. Home is what we know.
Taking on a deeper meaning during Covid times, the documentary’s notions of separation and of an undefined temporality, became more universal. “Trapped in America, Mohamad missed weddings, funerals, and birthdays for years, and now because of quarantine, that feeling of longing is something that we can all relate to”, explains Jimmy Goldblum.
“Some people, as they move through their lives, rediscover home again and again; some people never find another after once leaving home; and, of course, some people never leave the one home they’ve always known”, states Verlyn Klinkenborg in a Smithsonian Magazine article. In fact, although humans have different approaches to life, the notion of home is always present, and “a Broken House” seeks to shed light on what it feels like to long for a home, for your home.
“I miss it. I miss home,” concludes Hafez.
Check below the full list of awards and mentions gathered so far.
- 2022 Oscar Shortlist for "Best Documentary Short"
- NOMINEE: Cinema Eye Honors Honors, Outstanding Nonfiction Short
- NOMINEE: IDA Documentary Awards for Best Short
- SHORTLIST: DOC NYC Shortlist
- WINNER: Palm Springs International ShortsFest | Audience Award for Best Documentary Short
- WINNER: Palm Springs International ShortsFest | Mozaik “Bridging the Borders” Award
- WINNER: Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival | Jury Award for Best Editing
- WINNER: RiverRun Film Festival | Jury Award for Best Documentary Short
- WINNER: Salem Film Festival | Jury Award for Best Documentary Short
- WINNER: SCAD Savannah Film Festival | Best Documentary Short
