Taxi Ballad - تاكسي البلد

Trailer for Taxi Ballad

Recently released widely in Lebanese Theaters, Taxi Ballad is a first attempt for Daniel Joseph to direct feature films. The movie is about an "underachieving" Lebanese Taxi driver's ambitions with a remarkably good level in English(?). The debut of the movie is little disappointing with a curious decision to reveal the movie title solely in Latin script, while completely discarding Arabic. The same remark holds for the credits in the end. Another disappointing decision is to screen the movie with French subtitles. Such absurd decision can be only seen as if the distributors think that the Lebanese language cannot be understood by Lebanese audience! (see also Where do we go now? who managed to rectify later this problem is some theaters)

The film is overly nice keeping in mind that this is first long feature for the director, with hope that he will learn from this experience to give us in the future even better movies. Most nature scenes are beautifully colored, but some elements are felt missing every time, making it little credible in faithfully presenting the Lebanese life. The storyline can be enjoyable, but its structure could've been better built. We should note that most actors played their role naturally, most notably the honorable presence of Mahmoud Mabsout (Fahman) who died recently and whose role was inspired from a previous character in Beirut After Shave.

Most audience would enjoy the movie, and are encouraged to watch it in order to support the Lebanese movie productions in the future.

Parenthesis: I couldn't help noticing this currently growing trend where foreign actors costarring the Lebanese movie. I suspect that the reason might be the foreign funding, but this could not be the only one. (e.g. Beirut Hotel, Where do we go now?,  Taxi Ballad, Une Chanson dans la tête﴿

1958 - ١٩٥٨

Trailer for "1958"

While waiting for the screening of the movie, people were wondering among different materials in the exhibition named "Revolution vs. Revolution" at the Beirut art center. When the screening starts, one can deduce why the movie blends naturally in the theme of the ongoing exhibition. As the name suggests, the "essay" movie (as described by the director), the movie revolve around the year of the birth of Salhab and the different events that stormed his home country during that time. Based on the testimony of his mother (the pillar of the movie as called by the director), the story of the internal violent conflicts were told in parallel, while the testimony focuses more on the mother's feelings when going to Dakar and having her first child. The father testimony was absent, while other testimonies were added to give some equilibrium (was it needed?) to the story. Mixed with few French poems written by the director, some archive footage, and dramatized scenes, the movie offered the audience a retrospective on an integral part of the Lebanese History that was chosen to be forgotten.

Beirut Hotel (review) - بيروت بالليل

Trailer for "Beirut Hotel"

Lebanese audience watched this feature in defiance to the infamous ban that is imposed, and proved that such censorship is rather meaningless in a connected world. Arte channel, a main contributor to the movie, screened Beirut Hotel earlier in January. The movie was scheduled to be released in Lebanese theaters prior to the TV release, but the ban prevented this from happening. The movie is carefully made, and it was selected for many festivals, there is no clear reason why it wasn't selected for Cannes this year although it was supported by "The Atelier". The actress Hamze was playing one of her best roles in her career, thanks to Arbid's direction. Nevertheless, few problems arose related to the erotic scenes in the original trailer. Overall, Arbid is proving once more her great talent by a successful third movie attracting audience (Western and Arabs). The plot revolves around a love affair intersecting with a spy story. As in her previous movie, the main cast is divided between a French actor, and an Arab one. They met by chance, and the French begin stalking the Arab until they bond together. The cinematography is rather eye-candy, revealing an appealing Beirut in a colorful picture. The unfortunate ban have contributed to raising awareness among the population and promoting the movie (approximately 1.5 million watched the TV release including 700,000 in France alone + 34,000 on the web). The last chance to watch Beirut Hotel on arte is scheduled on February 4th 01:40 GMT+1.

Territory of Rose - خلة وردة

Trailer for Territor of Rose

After directing many music videos and advertisement, Adel Serhan had a first experience in feature movie Territory of Rose. The movie tells a story of a village during the occupation of South Lebanon and the atrocities committed by Lahd conspirators army. Despite the harsh reality, the film managed to gather a light touch of humor and a challenging entertaining plot. Nevertheless, the low production budget imposed itself by a humble quality of many technical aspects (photography, makeup, etc). For some reason, the projection in theaters had a DVD resolution, which devalues the picture quality enormously. Nevertheless, it's an entertaining movie, and will satisfy a big share of the audience expectations.

Censorship craze

Artistic creations in Lebanon is facing a new challenge with the recent announcement about canceling the long-awaited screening of Beirut Hotel in Lebanon theaters by the censorship committee. As suggested, the film was banned due to political reason, not for the intimate scenes inside, it was considered as it would "endanger Lebanon's security"! We hope that this decision will be reverted quickly and witness the release of the film soon in Lebanon.

We take this occasion to hope best luck for the director Danielle Arbid during the screening of this movie in Dubai during the DIFF. Apparently the margin of freedom is getting wider in Dubai, in contrast to Beirut.

Note: Thanks for the Independist for pointing out to this sad story.