Returning to an exceptional archive, British director Nick Green was able, with a documentary series, to show the story of Bashar Al-Assad's evolution;

That untrustworthy boy who was not expected to come to power becomes a mass murderer.

The French magazine L'Obs reviews this documentary consisting of 3 parts, and says that it shows that those who follow the story of the Assad dynasty that ruled Syria for 50 years will know why Syria is in ruins today.

In this film, which was produced in October 2018, the report's editor, Sarah Daniel, says its third installment is entitled "What is left of humanity for him?"

He begins with an interview with the Syrian doctor Zahir Sahloul, who joined the medical school in London with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and he knew him well, in which he says, "This is ridiculous. We were colleagues and today one of us bombed hospitals and the other treated the victims of the bombing."

The French magazine believes that the interesting paradox is that this young man was shy to the point that he was impassioned when he addressed him to any human being, and was so clumsy that he almost escaped from him the papers he was reading during his brother's funeral, just as he was not in the eyes of his father Hafez relying on him to be president, so how This pseudo-clumsy, untrustworthy, after he wanted to become an ophthalmologist, has become a tyrant on his hands of the blood of nearly half a million Syrians?

Lieutenant miscalculation

Lopes adds that upon the death of Bashar al-Assad's brother Basil in a car accident in 1994, the first question Hafez al-Assad asked himself was “Is this a coup?” Because it was Basil who saw in him the continuity of the caliphate, and he was the one who was prepared from an early age to assume the post after him. He was a natural tyrant who inherited his father's arrogance and cruelty, and he loved weapons, cars and horses, and he did not hesitate to throw one of his comrades into prison when he defeated him in a horse competition, but his passion for racing cars killed him in the end.

Although Bashar's sister was closer to the level of cruelty of the father, her being a female made Hafez al-Assad settle for an ophthalmologist, especially since his two other sons were a drug addict suffering from psychological problems and the other was very young, according to Lopes.

The documentary shows Bashar’s vigorous training on dictatorship, first in the army. Incredible pictures of Hafez are shown asking the new recruits to be killed by dogs, and for women to line their necks with snakes and cut their heads off with their teeth, to show their determination and blind obedience to the commander.

After that comes the duality in politics, the hamburger strategy as they call it, which is based on good reception of the interlocutors and showing the strength of friendship, but without giving them any concession, as if we removed the meat from the sandwich, and it is what Bashar applied in 2003 when he received the heads of states participating in the coalition after the events of September 11, he finally refused to join in front of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the jihadists were secretly released from Syrian prisons to join the ranks of anti-American fighters in Iraq.

And the matter was - as Lopes says - a miscalculation, as after the Syrian revolution the jihadists crossed the border again to return to Syria, but the miscalculation that nearly killed Bashar al-Assad was his decision to bring Syria into a civil war that left him in a moment less than less than 20% of the territory were it not for the Russian intervention that saved his regime.

Cold-blooded mass killer

At the beginning of the revolution, some of them thought that Assad would choose reform instead of repression, but his mother urged him to choose the voice of cruelty, just as his younger brother Maher committed many atrocities, and the documentary shows that he was aware of everything and was responsible, even if the scale of his crimes was greater than he could. The film documented it.

The shy, skinny little ophthalmologist destroyed entire neighborhoods - as the movie shows - and killed hundreds of protesters, and used sarin gas and targeted assassinations, until he became a cold-blooded mass murderer, surpassing the father to a great extent.

The French magazine lists part of the film that deals with the case of Asma, the first lady who grew up in Britain and who was scheduled to graduate from Harvard University, but she preferred to marry the lion, and Latifa seemed interested in her people to the point of immersion in society to learn about the concerns of the street.

Lopes concludes that “Vogue” magazine conducted an interview with Asmaa and called it “The Desert Rose,” but that coincided with the Tunisian fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi setting himself on fire, so that the “Jasmine Revolution” was launched there, and soon after the arrest of the revolution in Syria. And the torture of the children of Daraa, who wrote on the walls of their school, "It is your turn, Doctor," and then - as the writer says - this educated woman's conscience died and she turned to buying luxury jewelry from Harrods, as it seems.