SlingShot Hip Hop - هيب هوب المقلاع

In the light of the tragic events that are shredding Gaza (which remind me to the latest infamous war against Lebanon in 2006 with ironically very similar circumstances), this post will be dedicated to the new award-winning documentary by Jackie Salloum: Slingshot Hip Hop.

Slingshot Hip Hop Trailer

Despite all the borders, walls, checkpoints, and the apartheid regime, this feature reveals the unity of the Palestinian population wherever they are. The movie is surprisingly amusing for a documentary, it reveals youth life and the continuing will to overturn the outcomes of the oppression imposed on occupied people. It highlights suavely different talents mainly in Hip Hop, that are blooming against the occupation and the indignity. The music they compose is enjoyable by youth, but also by elder people as some scenes indicates. That kind of culture is one way towards breaking the chain that imprisons bodies, but not minds of occupied people.
To resume, director Jackie Salloum redefines, and successfully corrects the image of the Arabs with respect to the vilification that floods screens of every westerner.
No one can ignore the big talent of Salloum, you can easily enjoy her studies about the western media vs. Arabian media by playing the videos below side by side; the first one emphasize the dehumanization of Arabs in the West medias, the other shows Arabs from their own eyes (mainly a successful montage from different Lebanese and Egyptian films).

Planet of the Arabs (up left), and Arabs a Go-go (lower right) by Jackie Salloum

I can only hope such movie reach a wide audience not only in the middle-east, but especially in Europe and USA.
Note that this is not the first post on a Palestinian movie, I would remind of another one discussing the great feature Salt of This Sea.

Une Chanson dans la tête - ميلودراما حبيبي

Trailer for Melodrama Habibi

Hani Tamba released this long fiction, his first one in France, a pity that it wasn't released earlier in Lebanon this crowded summer. My beliefs is that it would have compete well with the other American movies. In France, it might not be considered as general public movie, but the first days it was a hit I suppose. The movie made a great bi-lingual movie, although some lines may not seem as natural for Lebanese (an oracle which speaks almost exclusively in French!) which reveals the Lebanese openness to other cultures. Behind the story, the most highlighted theme that we may extract is the focus on the memory, and how weak are humans relying on it. This theme can be touched in the director's award winning short After Shave where we can find other common subjects. One of these, is his choice of the music composer, Khaled Mouzanar whose talent marked his wife's movie as well. Regarding the cast, I was excited with Julia Kassar's presence, it's a shame that her role was so short, even though her talent was shining in the little space she was given.
Even though the ending was a bit pessimistic for Lebanon future, in my opinion, this Tamba's first feature was a success, only missing its release in Lebanon.

In Memoriam ...

This week witnessed a big loss for the Lebanese artistic community. A great talent that contributed in defining lines of Arabic and Lebanese films would not be forgotten any time soon. Her marks will remain shining in the history of our culture.

Her best known works include "The Kite" which was honored with the silver Lion award in the Venice film festival.

Randa Chahal, Rest In Peace...

I want to see - بدّي شوف

"I want to see" Trailer

It's not clear in what category to put this movie, It's not a short since its duration passed an hour, not a fiction neither since what we see is a real story, and not a documentary (is it?) where every thing is programmed. You might think it's a media report about a journey visit of the French actress Catherine Deneuve to a disaster zone (few months after the disaster). The camera was almost exclusively pointed at Mrs Deneuve, and sometimes at Rabih Mroueh. During this one day journey, Catherine visited the southern suburbs for a short period of time, then continues to Bent Jbeil, the hometown of Rabih. He showed deep emotions in his quest to find his grand mother house with all the destruction around, Catherine was only trying to find out where Rabih have gone, showing little interest of her surrounding. During the rest of the movie, Catherine appeared tired of the trip, maybe because she could not support what she wanted to see? In all the movie, she gives the impression of being passive, unless for one scene where we see her reacting when Rabih was talking about her movies! The last scene where she was showing respect and appreciation for Rabih, was a beautiful moment to see.
The movie included beautiful scenes from the south, with the plain of dancing wheat expressing high aesthetic taste, the other which focused on machines and ruins is well moving.
In short, I see this movie as an experimental piece - the directors called it a cinematographic adventure - which is not (AFAIK) aiming to reach general public, but tells a real story free from faking emotions, or alien scenes. It simply shows a beautiful work depicting reality behind stars we used to see them acting.

Interview with Rabih Mroueh

"I want to see" presentation at Cannes

Thoughts about Cannes 2008

This year in Cannes, there were only one Lebanese movie, halfing the outcome of the last year, which does not reflect a growth in movie industry in this country, yet there have been some notable releases outside Cannes (Falling from earth, Khalass, Under the bombs,...). A post here will be dedicated later to the movie in question "I want to see".
Instead, I'll discuss in this post two non-Lebanese movies.

The fist movie is the latest Palestinian movie, "Salt of this sea" (ملح هذا البحر) by the Palestinian director AnneMarie Jacir, who is living currently in the US.
The movie shows a respectable work, with all elements done in a really professional way. In my opinion, the writer/director aims in this movie is to reach the heart and mind of western public through tough questions and facts about the stolen land. Such questions that are the most obvious for people in the region are recycled also to target Arab as well, even if it was not direct.
What I appreciate about most Palestinian movie that I've seen so far, is that they are not afraid of sharing a political opinion (in this case just facts) in movies, unlike some of the Lebanese movies where they try to avoid, or just surfacing such subjects, leaving the viewer isolated from what the directors consider as taboo subjects. After all, artists purpose was always to blur lines, pushing limits further, etc.
I urge every one to go watch this piece of art/history, the actors were great, scenes are breathtaking, and simply because it's beautiful. It might answers some questions, fix answers we know already, and enlightening our mind with some magic from a stolen land facing a daily life of progressive oppression, repression, occupation, war crimes under international silence,...

"Salt of this sea" Trailer

The other movie, was a shameful selection in Cannes this year, Cannes committee decided that it will be a good idea to include an movie about Sabra and Shatila massacre which took place in 1982 in Palestinian camps in Beirut during the civil war. I haven't seen this movie (and probably will not in near future), but what I was able to dig from the trailer and scenes I've seen in the Internet cloud, it focuses on Israelis paranoia and neglects the tragedy of the lost souls in those unfortunate camps left unprotected. Pushing the blame further towards Lebanese who contributed to such an unexplainable behavior, and putting Israelis as a distant accomplice. Whatever the case, I believe that such movie will remain a dark spot in the 2008 selection, because the director of this movie should be convicted in a war crime court for contributing to such massacre, and taking the movie as a witness and as piece of evidence with the negligible scenes it described. But instead Cannes people decided that honoring criminals for their act is a good thing to do for a reason that escaped my reasoning.
It is shame as well that no long feature were produced by Lebanese nor Palestinian giving such a historical tragedy in human history what it deserves. It surely falls on the taboo side for Lebanese directors.