SOUS LES BOMBES (UNDER THE BOMBS)

France, 2007, 98 minutes, Colour.
Georges Khabbaz, Nada Abou Farhat.
Directed by Philippe Aractingi.

Sous les Bombes was filmed soon after the war in Lebanon in July 2006. Its great value in alerting its audience to the realities and hardships consequent on the three weeks of bombing of Beirut and the south of the country is the presentation throughout of the bombs, the ruins and rubble, the bulldozers, the finding of bodies and burials, the attempts to get the country back in order. This is very moving (and alarming) as more than 1000 people were killed in Lebanon compared with a much smaller number in Israel.

The film-makers have used this realism and documentary evidence as background to a familiar war story. A mother finds her way back from Dubai through Turkey and employs a taxi driver to take her south (where other taxi drivers are unwilling to go) to find her sister and her six year old son. He bargains for money – and also has a roving eye as it emerges when they stay at a hotel during their journey. In the meantime, she is in mobile phone contact with her husband, a developer in Hong Kong. This provides an international flavour to the story while the images on Lebanese television are hostile to Israel and critical of its breaking of the cease-fire.

The mother is distraught, becoming more so as the journey takes them following further and further leads, to collapsed buildings, to cemeteries, to hospitals and, ultimately, to a monastery refuge.

Dramatically, the obsession of the mother will either draw audiences in with sympathy (who could fail to be moved?). However, her tunnel-vision and pig-headedness (understandable) means that she is willing to ignore good advice and press on, no matter what the consequences. The performance is something of a one-note portrayal. However, the taxi driver’s character develops from a go-getting attitude (even trying to cadge medicines from a supply ship), through a sexual encounter with the hotel receptionist, to a greater appreciation of the mother’s pain and a revelation about his own family and children.

The film is a valuable document of the war and its aftermath but the drama, while important, makes the desperation too dominant for full empathy despite the ending.

1.The impact of the film? The events of 2006? The rapidity with which the film was made, released?

2.The film for Lebanese audiences, looking at their experience, the attacks, the bombs, the deaths? Israel and attitudes to Israel? For the rest of the world to see? The suffering of Lebanon? The background of Americans helping Israel?

3.The authentic scenes: the bombs and the explosions, the devastation, the buildings collapsed, the ruins? People crushed under the ruins? The danger of mines? Guns? The visuals of Beirut, the damage it received? The pictures of the south of Lebanon and the destruction? The musical score?

4.The documentary look of so much of the film? An authentic feel? Audiences empathising with the Lebanese experience?

5.The decision to have a fiction story using the documentary material? The basic story, the mother and the search for her child, the difficulties, her doggedness (even pig-headedness), her grief, distraught? Her interactions with people on the way, with the taxi driver, the hopes for her son?

6.The portrait of the mother, arriving from Dubai via Turkey, her desperation, the taxi driver refusing to go to the south? Tony and his agreement? His motivations for taking a woman on this dangerous ride? The issue of money, the price? The travel? Looking at the devastation as they passed? Going to the town, the funerals, seeking the information, the lists, the refuges? The ultimate news about her sister’s death and her grief? Her continuing on? The night at the hotel? Tony and his dancing? Her phone calls from her husband? The background of her husband and his infidelity, her hopes that this could be a new beginning? The continued news about the children? Her going to the town, the hospital? The information about the monastery? The phone call and the child not speaking? Going the side roads? The importance of petrol, the kindness of the man they gave a lift to, his figs? His name and success at the petrol station, its being destroyed and the woman hoping to build it again with money from her son from Africa? Going to Tony’s friends, the welcome, the meal? The decision to go to the monastery, the car collapsing, going on foot? The encounter with the priest, the boy, it not being her son, his jacket, the boy’s story about what had happened to her son? Her grief and tears? Her embrace of the boy? Her future?

7.Tony, the background of his wife and his difficulties with her, his two sons and his pride in them, especially Gregory with his illness and overcoming it? His decision to take the woman? His motivation? Money, the touch of lechery? The driving, his knowing the way, the impact of the destruction? His arrival at the address, leaving the woman, her search? His going to the wharves, trying to get some illegal medicine? The continued journey, the dangers? The night at the hotel, the room, the discussions with the woman, the issue of money? The girl at the desk, the dance, the sexual encounter, the woman’s nightmares and his going to her? Continuing the journey, the man with the figs, getting the petrol? The frustrations, his change of heart, his offering the money back? His going to his friend’s, the bridge broken? Going to the monastery, the car in the rut? Their walking? His being present and witnessing the woman’s grief? His motivation for being with her – the sexual innuendo? His accepting the reality?

8.The aid workers, the desperation, the hospitals, the lists? The funerals and the transferring of the bodies? The bulldozers and the fixing of the ruins? Trying to discover bodies? The police? The roadblocks? The ordinary people, their hospitality?

9.Lebanese television, Hezbollah, the information given to the people, Israel breaking the ceasefire, Israel’s motivations, the hostility towards Israel? The deaths of both Muslims and Christians in Lebanon?

10.The topical impact of the film? The film as a record of what happened in 2006? Insight into this Middle East situation?