The Cave

Name: The Cave
Genre: War, Documentary
Released: October 18, 2019
Duration: 107 min
Rating: 83
Cast: Amani Ballour, Salim Namour

2019

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 21 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 12 Ratings

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7.0

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7.0	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 12 Ratings

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The Cave

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Movie Details & Credits

Cinema Delicatessen | Release Date: October 18, 2019 | PG-13

Starring: Amani Ballour, Salim Namour

Summary: The Cave tells the story of a hidden underground hospital in Syria and the unprecedented female-led team who risk their lives to provide medical care to the besieged local population.

Director: Firas Fayyad

Genre(s): War, Documentary

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 107 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Kim Hughes

Nov 7, 2019

The Cave may be the saddest, most infuriating chronicle of the ghastly ravages of war on a country’s most vulnerable citizens —children — ever made. Read full review

100

Andy Howell

Sep 10, 2019

It will stick with you long after you leave the theater. It is as moving as it is possible for a film to be. Read full review

Ben Kenigsberg

Oct 17, 2019

Entering theaters at a timely moment, The Cave is a frightening immersion in life under siege in Syria that, as difficult as it often is to watch, can’t come close to replicating how harrowing it must have been to film. Read full review

Steve Pond

Sep 10, 2019

Fayyad’s cameras roam freely through the hospital and paint an intimate picture of the facility in which many of the patients are indeed children who’ve grown up under the shadow of warplanes. The footage of injured children and malnourished babies is wrenching and hard to watch, to the point where you wonder how Dr. Amani and her colleagues can fail to succumb to hopelessness and rage. Read full review

The Guardian Cath Clarke

Dec 10, 2019

To say The Cave would break anyone’s heart feels flimsy. Like Ballour, it has a purpose: to focus the world’s attention on the suffering of Syrian people. Read full review

Joshua Rothkopf

Nov 27, 2019

Ballour’s presence makes Fayyad’s film inspiring, even as we cringe for her safety with every overhead explosion. Read full review

Vikram Murthi

Oct 15, 2019

It’s a monotonous descent into agony that coasts on the impossibility of anyone walking away unaffected by the imagery. Read full review

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User Reviews

JavierQuesada

Nov 22, 2019

While the hospital personnel at The Cave learn to differentiate by sound the different types of warplanes flying overhead and their country of origin for survival, it was the heart-wrenching sound of another stretcher rolling into the hospital while making the floor and walls shake with theWhile the hospital personnel at The Cave learn to differentiate by sound the different types of warplanes flying overhead and their country of origin for survival, it was the heart-wrenching sound of another stretcher rolling into the hospital while making the floor and walls shake with the weight of a human being fighting for his life that I dreaded the most during my time watching the documentary.
As a viewer I was struggling between wondering how much more of the reality presented to me I could take and wanting to reach through the screen and help them. That palpable was their urgency.
It is the unfiltered questions coming out of Dr. Amani’s own soul during her moments of most abatement and stress like “Is God really watching?” that fall like a bomb and shake the foundations of her own reality and the morals and practices of the culture around her.
The Cave is a masterclass in both documentary filmmaking and in humanity.… Expand

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