In Kurdistan, Bahar (the Franco-Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani), the commander of the battalion The Girls of the Sun, prepares to liberate her town from the hands of the men in black, with the hope of finding her son.
A French war journalist, Mathilde (Emmanuelle Bercot), recognizable by her eye patch, in reference to the American reporter Marie Colvin who died in Syria in 2012, comes to cover the offensive and bear witness to the story of these exceptional warriors, to narrate the horror endured by the prisoners and the bravery of the fighters.
The Girls of the Sun is also a tribute to this journalist.
The meeting between the two women brings to the surface Bahar’s journey since the men in black burst into her life.
Since their lives took a turn, they all fight for the same cause: women, life, freedom.
These courageous women deserved a film dedicated to them.
Eva Husson’s script allows us to learn a bit more about the daily struggles of the Kurdish soldiers fighting against the Islamist forces of Daesh between Syria, Iraq, and Turkey. A choice that weighs down the narration, even though the message the director wanted to convey is understood.
Filmed with a budget that one imagines to be limited, the film also offers the beauty of its settings, captured in the mountains of Georgia, while the depiction of the heroines’ fight is limited to the sole stakes of fulfilling a desire for revenge, that of outraged women.
The director even seems to refrain from contextualizing her narrative. The geopolitical implications matter far less to her than Bahar’s determination to find her son, an issue she concludes with a happy ending.
