overview of 2004 Arab Cinema Season

'In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed; but theyproduced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had 500 years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.’

Harry Lime, in The Third Man

Certainly the Arab world has had its fair share of warfare, terror and murder in the past 30 years, whether with the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the civil wars in Lebanon and Algeria, the first and second Gulf Wars involving Iraq, or membership, post-9/11, of the so-called ‘axis of evil’. What it has also produced, particularly in the last 15 years, is a dazzlingly eclectic number of fine films from across the region, from North Africa to Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. While the explosion of Iranian cinema throughout the 90s dominated Western media attention regarding cinema in the Middle East, Arab films have largely been overlooked. While much has been written of Egypt's ‘Golden Age’ of cinema the 50s and 60s, heralded by the likes of Youssef Chahine, Henri Barakat and Omar Sharif, filmmakers such as Daouad Abdel Sayed (A Citizen, an Inspector and a Thief) and Hani Khalifa (Sleepless Nights) represent a new breed of the socially-conscious, politically-aware school of cinema first developed under the ethos of Pan-Arab nationalism and the leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Similarly, several film-makers have risen from the political ruins of the Oslo Peace Process to create individualistic works which explain, with far greater lucidity than any political speech, what it means to be a Palestinian. Michel Khleifi, Elia Suleiman, Hany Abu-Assad and Hanna Elias are all members of a generation who have witnessed two Intifadas, the rise and collapse of a peace process, and the often brutal consequences of military occupation. While the latter three directors portray in their films of a sense of the absurd in lives lived in utter powerlessness and sheer defiance, Michel Khleifi retains a more soulful approach. In Rana’s Wedding, for example, one scene shows the protagonist trying on her best friend’s wedding dress, while they discuss her fears and hopes for the future. What gives the scene added piquancy, however, is the sight in the window behind her of an Israeli bulldozer silently demolishing yet another Palestinian home.

Lebanese film-makers have set about narrating the Lebanese war, the post-war era and the effects of the Palestinian conflict on their society’s sense of identity and purpose. While Ziad Doueiri’s West Beirut masterfully narrates the war from the perspective of three teenagers, Ghassan Salhab’s taboo-breaking film Terra Incognita tackles the loss of direction of the post-war generation. Eliane Raheb’s So Near Yet So Far takes as its starting point the iconic image of the killing of the child Mohamad Durra in the arms of his father at the start of the second Intifada. It follows the lives of Arabs in Jordan, Lebanon and France, showing how their sense of identity and purpose has been shaped by their embrace or rejection of the Palestinian cause. Mohamed Soueid tackles the Palestinian issue from another direction in Nightfall, catching up with the now middle-aged (and heavy-drinking) members of the Palestinian
Student Resistance Squad.

Syrian cinema is rarely seen, yet offers a distinctive aesthetic style in grappling with difficult issues shaping Syrian lives; while diverse films emanating from North Africa raise the ever-elusive question of what it means to be an Arab. What emerges from the contemporary offerings from Algeria (Rachida and Bab el-Oued City), which reflect the crushing human toll of the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism, is a heady mix of history, lyricism and struggle, of love and longing. And not a genie or flying carpet in sight!

Ali Jafaar