“Sirens,” a documentary by Rita Baghdadi about Slaves to Sirens, an all-female metallic group out of Beirut, Lebanon, opens in 2019 with the band united and blissful — they’ve been invited by a document label to play a small stage at Glastonbury Pageant in England. And whereas they wind up enjoying to a handful of individuals, the band provides its all.
Slaves to Sirens is a five-piece, and its neon-haired singer, Maya Khairallah, nails the monster voice that’s so widespread in up to date metallic. However the film’s focus is on the band’s two guitarists and major composers, Shery Bechara and Lilas Mayassi. Baghdadi (“My Nation No Extra”) reveals how tough it’s to say their identities in a repressive atmosphere.
When the band returns residence to Beirut, an atmosphere in fixed turmoil — one the place they’re barely tolerated, if observed in any respect — tensions emerge.
No one within the band is getting any youthful. Lilas nonetheless lives along with her mom. She has to enact infantile subterfuges when her Syrian girlfriend comes to go to to cover the true nature of her relationship. Shery, bristling at Lilas’s bossiness (and maybe nonetheless damage as a result of the 2 have been as soon as romantically concerned), quits.
With few different decisions, Lilas and Shery discover their method again to one another, not less than creatively. The ending, by which the reunited Sirens play earlier than an enthusiastic crowd, is heart-tugging and rousing, even for non-metal heads.
Sirens
Not rated. In Arabic and English, with subtitles. Working time: 1 hour 19 minutes. In theaters.