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Tech

The Most Stylized Video Out of War-Torn Syria

Slow-motion punch ins, sped-up punch outs, full-bleed flares, pacing. If (when) Kathryn Bigelow gives the Syrian conflict the big-screen treatment, this could be her trailer.

There is no such thing as non-brutal video coming out of Syria right now. Of the dribs and drabs being uploaded (typically against serious odds) to YouTube, we get the difficult sights and sounds of an increasingly dire situation, from that 75-clip playlist of the reported chemical attacks to ride alongs with Syrian army tanks, one of which we see get shelled here.

So this is no exception. This is a brutal video. If you haven't yet watched, or if you're only so far in, be forewarned: Humans get shot at, and then presumably incinerated by RPG.

But what's remarkable here is how this thing was cut. This is not just another bit of NSFL war porn caught on a cell phone camera. Which has me wondering: Who made it? How and where, in a place like Syria, were they able to cut this?

Between the slow-mo punch ins, sped-up punch outs, yellow-orange flares, and heart-strung score, it feels almost like a trailer. Or rather, a vignette paced and stylized for the express purpose of cutting above the noise, as a way to get the attention of outsiders presumably far, far from harm's way, to whom the whole bloody awful mess might have been lost on, until now, on account of so much of the video out of Syria simply being too janky, too raw.

Here, we still get the raw, but no jank. Is that a good thing?

@thebanderson