Part of the fear ISIS engenders is from the strange contradiction at its core; the group’s ideology proposes turning back the clock on civilization several centuries, yet their success relies entirely on their savvy use of digital technology to reach vulnerable and pliable young people. Their physical battles in the deserts and streets of Syria are waged simultaneously with hundreds of more intimate struggles for individual souls that take place on Facebook profiles and in Skype windows, trying to lure malcontents to leave the West behind and give their lives for the would-be caliphate. The gripping and eye-opening “Profile” from director Timur Bekmambetov, which is based on a true story, shows one such encounter, though with a twist – the impressionable young convert Melody Nelson that chats with ISIS recruiter Bilel (Shazad Latif) is actually the British journalist Amy Whittaker (Valene Kane), trying to bring their online tactics to light. As Whittaker and Bilel endear themselves to each other, Bekmambetov wisely shows the action entirely within the confines of a computer screen, as Amy tries to switch between programs and identities without losing herself.
Perhaps the most surprising part of the film is how easy it is to make contact with ISIS; Amy puts up a dummy profile pic of Snow White in a hijab, likes some accounts she read from the news, shares a video from Bilel, and voila, she’s chatting directly with him. Once she starts the process, Facebook and other services helpfully propose connections and feature ads for services like “Find your Muslim Life Partner.” The encounter is essentially a seduction, first in a general sense, but very soon Bilel is telling “Melody” how great her life will be as his wife in Syria and it takes on overt romantic overtones. Much of the interaction is indistinguishable from thousands of more prosaic romantic encounters that play out daily on these same platforms. The two make dates to call, share funny cat pictures, and once even cook a curry together over video. Bilel plays to the hilt the role of the hale and hearty warrior, showing off his weapons, smiling from behind aviator sunglasses as his armed convoy rolls through the streets of Raqqa. Amy creates “Melody” by parroting the stories of another teen that left Britain to join ISIS, citing fairly common teen afflictions like not fitting in, an absent father, and a lack of direction.
It’s striking how non-ideological everything is. Neither Melody nor Bilel really profess any interest in a global power struggle, it’s almost entirely couched in terms of personal grievance. Bilel, himself born in Britain, describes his life there as a succession of failure and discrimination and later he offers to kill someone who had wronged Melody as a wedding present. The complex intermingling of cultures is often eerie to behold. Despite the asceticism of ISIS ideology, Bilel displays a very Western sense of materialism, as seen in his video tour through an opulent home he’s seized for his own use. First he shows off the pool and amenities before walking into the bedroom to tell Melody “This is where the magic is gonna happen,” as in virtually every episode of “MTV Cribs.” His desires towards Melody also display something of a fetishization of supposedly haram (forbidden) Western attitudes, encouraging her to buy lingerie to please him and telling her he prefers Western women because they’re “more imaginative with their husbands.”
In the midst of all this, Amy’s regular life is carrying on in other browser windows. She gets an advance from her harried editor to pay her back rent, she’s looking at pictures of new apartments with her boyfriend, she’s helping her friend pick out a dress. Gradually, Amy’s code switching between her different identities begins to collapse as she accuses her friend of using an ISIS gesture in an innocuous picture and she posts a distraught message about Bilel on her regular profile. Though the film is intended mostly to shine a light on ISIS, it’s also revealing in its portrayal of Amy, a freelancer who embarks on the project in a haphazard manner with little support system. Soon, despite the murky motives and mutual false pretences, her relationship with Bilel starts to seem more “real” than her somewhat shallow real relationships and she’s traveling to Amsterdam to start the trip to Syria, seemingly unsure of how far she’s willing to go.
While the in-computer visuals mostly preclude traditional cinematography and editing, Bekmambetov is sometimes able to approximate them to strong effect, as at one point when a flirtation with Bilel goes too far and Amy hurriedly closes the Skype window only to reveal an article showing the plaintive eyes of a French convert who joined ISIS and wound up sold into sexual slavery. However, moments like this only reinforce the constant dissonance of seeing familiar platforms like Facebook being used to advance a millenarian death cult. Even if ISIS itself is on the wane and Facebook is now more associated with other abuses, “Profile” is thrillingly topical. The relationship between “Melody” and “Bilel” (also an assumed name) shows the slippery nature of performed online identities, the leveraging of personal grievances into political/terrorist action, and how the immense scale of social media can essentially collectivize and weaponize alienation and anger from around the world into real world terror. [A]
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