Beirut, 1 9 7 5. Teenager Tarek studies at a French school, but then sees the Christian Phalangist militia shooting Palestinians in a bus, which marks the start of the Lebanese Civil War. His neighborhood, the Muslim West Beirut, is separated by blockades from the Christian East Beirut. Tarek and his friend Omar want to develop their Super 8 film, but the shops are closed. When Tarek falls in love with a Christian girl without a father, May, he argues with Omar even more. Shootings are heard daily, and Tarek hides inside a building which turns out to be a brothel run by Oum Walid. His mom wants to leave Lebanon, but the patriotic father refuses to be a refugee, even though he lost his job. When the father plays a song, Tarek cries hiding behind a wall.
How would you react if your city was engulfed by war? A fascinating anti-nostalgic autobiographical reconstruction by director Ziad Doueiri of both his childhood and the Lebanese Civil War, "West Beirut" shows the bad luck of youngsters growing up during a conflict, and how they try to remain sane through jokes and fun (the teenage protagonist Tarek is at first happy that he doesn't have to go to school due to war), but slowly the bitter reality catches up with them. Doueiri creates a vividly colorful collage full of little details, transmitting to the viewers how it was to live in Beirut during that time—the episodic structure, a lack of character development for May, and a few clumsy scenes don't really corrode the high impression. One of the most insane moments, worthy of a cult movie, is when Omar throws a boot at the "demarcation" line separating west and east Beirut, and immediately a sniper shoots at it, but Tarek heard from a Taxi driver that by holding a bra anyone is given free access to traverse to the famous brothel, as some sort of universal signal of neutrality, so Tarek asks May to give him her bra, and then he, May and Omar simply safely walk across the street to the other side.
The madam of the brothel is a feisty character who laments in front of Tarek: "Is this a public house or a headache house?" and "The clients are already bringing the war with them here! One Christian didn't want to sleep with a girl in the same bed that was used by a Muslim before!... Does a bed have religion?!" The movie shows the wide effects of a war on a society, and how it is fragmented into several warring factions, enhancing aggressive behavior. This is bitingly summed up in the sequence where people are standing in line in a bakery, but the baker can only give them one bag of bread per person due to food restrictions, but then a paramilitary cuts through the line and demands 20 bags because he is "protecting the neighborhood", but the baker doesn't want to give him more than ten, so the paramilitary beats him up. Tarek's mom wants to leave the country, which leads to an argument with dad: "Do you know what they call us in Switzerland? Luxury refugees. In London, they send dogs to sniff us. In America, they call us sand-niggers." The movie deliberately gives no context for the complicated Lebanese Civil War to show it from the kids' perspective, since they themselves didn't know who is fighting whom, except that Christians and Muslims are on opposing sides. In a comical sequence, Tarek and Omar randomly find themselves inside a protest and start chanting what everyone is saying around them: "With our spirit, with our blood, we'll remember you, Kamal!", but then Tarek and Omar have this exchange: "Who's Kamal?" - "No idea." This outlines the movie's theme: the war doesn't stop to be PG for kids; and people sometimes fight without knowing why, but just want to join the trend of their group—only later on will they realize the consequences of tribalism around them.
Grade:+++
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