Death Without Mercy

The damage and death toll of the 2023 Turkey-Syria Earthquake was very much like the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The magnitudes are not so important. The severity of the destruction resulted from shoddy construction, abetted by high-level government corruption and exacerbated by a slow and incompetent official relief response. The public was outraged by Erdogan’s handling of the crisis. Yet, he came back to win re-election anyway—almost miraculously. Some might call it a curse instead. That probably includes some of the grieving survivors who share their bitter experiences in Waad Al-Kateab’s Death Without Mercy, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Probably 70% of Al-Kateab’s film consists of found primary sources, such as security cam footage, handheld device videos, and news reports. As members of the documentary community, who both previously worked with Al-Kateab, Fuad and Fadi instinctively started recording themselves. The dramatic footage they captured was devastatingly tragic and often absurdly Kafkaesque, but what it never shows is any kind of coordinated government rescue operation, even though off-the-street volunteers could hear buried people screaming under the rubble for several days.

Death Without Mercy truly never pulls its punches, especially when it incorporates the “goodbye” messages recorded by victims fatally trapped beneath debris. Yet, probably the most damning segment is a government PSA message recorded months earlier, promising a clean slate to any applicants with open zoning complaints. Suddenly, ten-story buildings that were only zoned for four became legal, as a gift to the people, offered by their loving government.

Frankly, the Syrian government’s response was probably even worse, but there is less documentation, because the Assad regime has turned the country into a closed pariah state. In fact, the Syrian government largely relied on relief aid from the United Nations (which we paid for), that was hopelessly slow in reaching victims, because of gross bureaucratic incompetence.

Eventually, one of Al-Kateab’s key collaborators reunites with his wife and infant, but their oldest son will be confirmed dead, one of the 60,000 victims, many of whom might have survived under a less venal, more transparent government. Her other coleague is not as “lucky.”

As a result, after watching Death Without Mercy, most viewers will wonder how Erdogan could possibly get re-elected and how could the world, in good conscious, allow Antonio Guterres to remain Secretary General? This film is not merely an indictment, it is a primal scream of grief. Highly recommended for anyone who wants an unvarnished understanding of “our NATO Ally” Turkey, Death Without Mercy opens tomorrow (10/11) at the IFC Center.