The fake Hero

A man struggles to dodge the bullets as he is in the middle of a warzone. A young boy, probably around nine, runs towards a car, or what´s left of it, but he receives two bullet hits on the back and fall to the ground. Suddenly, he rises up again, and arrive to the car, where a small girl was hiding, and carries her, saving her for an almost certain death. In the background there are some barrels painted as the Syrian flag, and we can hear voices speaking in Syrian “God is great!”, so, even though the exact location is not clear, it is evident that this footage was shot during the Syrian conflict.

The truth is that this video was shot in the same film set where movies like Gladiator were shot.

Last November, a video claiming to be amateur footage of the Syrian conflict was uploaded to YouTube. Given the viral status it got, its author confirmed that it was fake. It was shot in a film set in Malta by a group of Norwegian filmmakers captained by film director Lars Klevberg using funds by Norwegian Film Institute (NFI). 

"By publishing a clip that could appear to be authentic we hoped to take advantage of a tool that's often used in war; make a video that claims to be real. We wanted to see if the film would get attention and spur debate, first and foremost about children and war.”

Klevberg certainly got its way, as the video reached 5 millon views in less than a week.

Although it was unclear from which side of the war were they, the images of a boy getting shot and rescuing a small girl from a shootout surely raised awareness about the cruelty of this war, and how children were affected. It also opened a debate about its legitimacy. It was certainly suspicious, as the boy, shot twice, is then able to keep running and appears to have no sign of blood. In the words of producer John Einar Hagen, these were small clues to make clear that the video was fake. Naturally, the video, once it was revealed to be fake, received very mixed opinions, being specially criticized about the frivolity which they treat one of the worst modern conflicts.

The only thing sure is that the main goal of Klevberg, to make people think in a real problem that we tend to forget, was accomplished. It doesn´t matter if in the end it was more a secondary topic on a wider discussion (the faking of information as a mean to get positive ends), this case reminded people that the conflict is still there and thousands of children are dying. 

And that wouldn´t had been possible without the use of image. In a world where we are bombarded with information, it is the visuals, the things we can actually see, that get our attention. We don´t care much about facts that tell that nearly ten percent of the casualties between civilians and combatants are children, but we will instinctively click on a video about a boy being a hero. One of those is real, the other not. But both could be real, and if that was the case, it would have equally been the video, fake or not, that would have caught our attention.