Eternal Childhood in Iraq:A high-concept meditation on life and death

Songs of Adam (أنَاشِيْدُ آدَمَ, 2024), the latest film by Iraqi filmmaker Oday Rasheed, opens with a death in the family and immediately pivots towards a life-changing decision. When young Adam (Azzam Ahmed) witnesses the burial of his grandfather, he decides that he will never grow up any further: no matter how the world changes around him, he will always remain 10 years old. His brother will overtake him in age, as will his friends. He will never marry, never become a parent, and never take on any of the roles adults are expected to assume. His grandfather’s passing affects him so profoundly that Adam almost gives up on life, or at least on the natural progression of what destiny once had in store for him.

Yet in another sense, Adam is the only person truly living within Rasheed’s film. By refusing to age, he approaches life with a childlike purity, an innocence from which he observes all kinds of transformation. He witnesses the men in his village going off to fight wars, and later he sees them settle down with their spouses. Entire generations are born in front of his eyes and Adam outlives them all, unchanged. As strange as it may sound, Adam seems to be the only character who has understood what it means to be alive: not necessarily through personal change or growth, but by simply being and existing.

If this were a Hollywood movie (Songs of Adam enters into an interesting cinematic dialogue with David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button [2008], where the main character ages in reverse), then the central premise might have had to include big, spectacular set-pieces. But Rasheed instead opts to craft a meditative film embued with religious undertones (the Islamic burial at the work’s beginning; the naming of the titular protagonist after “the first man”). The images of bloodshed and devastation that often dominate cinematic portrayals from the Iraq region are thankfully avoided here — the film’s story mostly takes place in Adam’s village, showing his everyday routines and how certain villagers’ superstitions affect his ageless “condition”. All of this allows for a grounded, but engaging viewing experience, despite all the fantastical elements.

At its core, Songs of Adam is the story of one country’s history, but Rasheed refuses to package his work as a heavy-handed, stuffy classroom lesson. The film never gets bogged down in exposition or unnecessary plot points — if one is familiar with key moments from Iraqi history and politics, that background information might help in understanding certain scenes, but only minimally, as the emotional through-line remains intact even without it. Rasheed builds his narrative around the magical-realist conceit of Adam’s fixed age, which is the lens through which we shift across decades, from the lush farms in mid-1940s Mesopotamia up until the recent devastation caused by the so-called Islamic State. It’s ambitious, high-concept storytelling, but all feels intimate by design as well.

Adam is beautifully played by debutant Azzam Ahmed. His strikingly naturalistic acting makes the character’s decision to never age feel believable, as if this were the most normal thing for any person. As a direct result, the magical elements of Songs of Adam’s narrative feel genuine rather than absurd. The film’s cinematography (by Basim Faihad, another newcomer) deserves a special mention too — small gestures and details are captured delicately and with patience, for example, in one memorable moment when a sandstorm engulfs the entire frame and characters are seen walking through it. Songs of Adam is a wonderfully authentic picture, deserving of all the awards and accolades it has so far received and will continue to receive, especially beyond the film festival circuit.

By Schayan Riaz
Edited by Johnny Murray
Copyright FIPRESCI