J Paul Johnson
Having premiered last year at Cannes and set to open theatrically this week in North America, Jonathan Millet’s debut narrative feature Ghost Trail is a slow-walk quasi-thriller with a trail of success across festivals around the world. It’s a quiet, somber, docufiction-esque take on the genre, intentionally eschewing the hectic chases, violent confrontations, and showy stunts you’ll see in most thrillers. It’s an approach that pays off—mostly—in a contemplative take on the limits and ethics of revenge.
The film’s approach is established from its opening scene as protagonist Hamid (Adam Bessa), indistinguishable amongst a group of others in the same predicament, is conveyed in custody in a crowded van and released by Syrian soldiers into the desert. Hamid witnesses one man collapse under the heat of the desert sun; surely others will meet that same fate. Two years later, Hamid, adopting a new identity, is living and working in Strasbourg. His goal is to find a man he claims, at first, is a friend but is, in actuality, the man who had tortured him during a stint in the notorious “human slaughterhouse” known as Saydnaya Prison. Hamid’s goal is singular and unwavering: to find, and exact his revenge upon, his target.
As the narrative progresses—every bit as incrementally and cautiously as Hamid’s investigation—a few details about his past are revealed. He was once a literature professor in Aleppo. His wife and daughter were killed during his imprisonment. These “revelations,” so to speak, are divulged without any of the melodrama common to most thrillers, and they are not dwelled upon; they’re simply mentioned, once, and not again. For the most part, Hamid is quiet, contemplative, studious, and methodical, but almost without emotion or affect. He simply studies—and stalks.
Hamid has joined an an underground network of Syrians who track down enforcers of the Assad regime across Europe. Their intention is to hand their findings over to the authorities, but Hamid is more invested in a simple act of revenge. Over time, and with their help and that of a fellow refugee named Yara (Hala Rajab), Hamid narrows his focus on a man going by the (quite common) name of Sami Hanna, whom Hamid is certain is Harfaz (Tawfeek Barhom, Cairo Conspiracy)—the man who tortured him and others in Saydnaya Prison—and who is currently teaching at the same school as Hamid.
A good deal of Hamid’s intelligence regarding Harfaz’s movements comes from his network of Syrian friends, who talk covertly while playing a Call-of-Duty-style war game online. Millet uses game footage, sometimes considerably and even when it is largely static, as Hamid and his colleagues share their intelligence and tactics. Another means by which the film provides some necessary exposition is Hamid’s Zoom calls with his mother (Shafiqa El Till), who lives in a refugee camp in Beirut.
Millet’s approach here is largely documentary in nature, and while it is an approach that feels genuine, it also has its limits. Zoom calls and video games make, frankly, for an exceedingly dull visual palette, and while the scenes are shot and edited carefully, there’s very little in Ghost Trail to convey any specific kind of visual interest: it proceeds with sundry drudgery of a long and complex investigation. That Hamid’s portrayal by Bessa is one largely without affect or emotion contributes to the film’s equally meditative, emotionless approach. This is not to say it should be otherwise, but watching Ghost Trail can feel a little like watching the last ten minutes of Antonioni’s The Passenger—brilliant but exasperating—for the film’s full runtime.
Even when Hamid eventually encounters and confronts his target Harfaz directly, Millet avoids any of the common tropes of the thriller genre. The two, seated together in a crowded cafeteria, engage in a halted, cagey, guarded, and exceedingly polite conversation that yields little concrete information. Do not expect accusations, recriminations, reversals, gunplay, fights, chases, or anything of the sort that might inform a more standard thriller. Instead, Ghost Trail is a more intellectual exercise in Hamid’s consideration of the tenuous evidence in front of him and the ethical dimensions of the revenge he desires. Can he—should he—exact revenge against the man who tortured him, even when he cannot know the man’s culpability with absolute certainty? Or should he move on from the past and continue building a new life for himself?
Millet spent a full year researching and documenting sleeper cells like the one Hamid joins in Ghost Trail. In one such case, a refugee who had lived in Germany since 2015 was eventually unmasked—after a full three years of effort by underground activists, Kais Al-Abdallah was outed and stood trial as an ISIS jihadist who had helped to abduct and imprisoned French journalists in Syria. Al Abdallah was one of several ISIS jihadists convicted earlier this year. Ghost Trail is not a documentary of these men or their crimes but a loosely fictionalized account, from a Syrian survivor’s perspective, of the work of these underground sleeper cells to bring terrorists to justice—as well as of the moral dimensions of doing so.
In that regard, Ghost Trail is an eminently satisfying portrayal of the plight of Syrian refugees and their diaspora across Europe. Scattered across borders, their means of keeping a community are fragile, yet their resolve cannot be questioned. Ghost Trail forgoes conventional genre tropes, at times even sacrificing visual appeal and dynamic characterization for a more verité, authentic approach: it’s one that won’t satisfy viewers expecting something more dramatic, but it’s true to its director’s intent and a story that will haunt long after its end credits roll.
