Beyrouth ya Beyrouth

A warning: the 10 stars is not for the actual merit but as an encouragement to watch it.

The movie is unduly long for what it has (or might want) to say, slow and at times frankly boring and it reaches its apparent intent of showing the disconcert of that Lebanese generation ( for which much worse was to come, unfortunately) by disconcerting the viewer.

The director had surely grown up on a heavy dose of French movies doubled down with Bergman and Antonioni's influence.

The long sequences of people sitting silent in cafès, staring at nothing might have endeared viewers as avant-garde at the time but are now frankly just boring.

Having said so it still is interesting as a time piece, notable also for the depiction of traditional if decaying old Lebanese mansions which in the intervening decades have probably been destroyed and rebuilt more than once.

I feel so sorry for that part of the world and those people so in the end, by watching this movie, I felt like sharing a bit in their misfortune.

Love and chaos are intertwined in a Beirut which is trying pull itself back up post defeat in the Arab Israeli war. Young wannabe revolutionaries find themselves frustrated, neutral sideliners become frustrated, lovers frustrated with one another, all hope fades away. We only see peace in the mesmerising scenes of two mad hatters who have the remarkable ability of going where the wind blows. Perhaps fighting the wind is not worth it any longer. The revolutionary days of the Arabs are over. The American company will build where it wants, the businessmen will make profit at any cost and the working people must sit and endure these endless cycles of pre revolutionary excitement and post revolutionary despair. This film is remarkable in making you empathise with the most flawed and unamiable characters. The abrupt editing style does not take you out of the film a single bit, but only makes you feel the forever ongoing nature of these struggles the Lebanese people face. This film is timeless, despite the terrible fashion of the 70s ;)

I can't believe it's been a decade since i watched this in college. Even harder to believe that there is not a single review on it yet. This is not a very classic war film of an era that changed forever. The events take place in Beirut after the Israeli raid on the airport and after the death of Egyptian President Abdel Nasser in September 1970. It narrates the events through 4 characters coming from different faiths and social classes.

Maroun Baghdadi takes a slow-burn approach and naturally presents the events of the last days before the Civil War through conversations from different perspectives. His work is more of a personal film and we can see how he penetrates the psyche of the characters to warn about the future and the war to come. His prediction was right, and the beautiful Beirut was filled with mushroom smokes a year later.

There are so many great scenes in the film, and it is also incredibly intense on an emotional level without artificially exaggerated or manipulative. What is astonishing is the use of music and it helps in stringing together impressive scenes. You can't really sum up with few about the film itself, because if you look at it more closely, it's a misfired gem considering the budget and the political timeline. Despite the shortcomings mentioned, it is astonishing to witness the glory days of Beirut with great acting and solid soundtrack that radiates the melancholic mood. Highly recommended if you love world Cinema and respect an acute vision, do not skip this sincere effort of filmmaking. I would recommend it to arthouse fans, also check out his other films. I highly recommend Jocelyne Saab's Beirut Trilogy and Ziad Doueiri's West Beirut (1988) currently streaming on Netflix.