16/05/2011

The sweet smell of comedy hangs over the grave subject of the religious conflicts that blight the lives of the Lebanese people for the Un Certain Regard selection Where Do We Go Now? [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Nadine Labaki, presented today at the 64th Cannes Film Festival. The majority French production (Les Films des Tournelles and Pathé) was co-produced with Lebanon, Egypt, and Italy.

The film is set in a small isolated village connected to the outside world by a steep path bordered with barbed wire and landmines, where Muslim and Christian women endlessly bury husbands and sons. Labaki tackles a spiral of vengeance not unlike that of [Denis Villeneuve’s] Scorched [+see also:
trailer
film profile], but with a diametrically different approach.

Subtly blending optimism and idealism to create a hopeful fable, the filmmaker profusely uses laughter to tackle a very serious, topical subject. Regardless of their religion, the women of the village will league together to stop their men from killing each other because of events occurring elsewhere in the country.

Led by Takla (Claude Baz Moussawbaa), Afaf (Layla Hakim), Amale (Labaki) and Yvonne (Yvonne Maalouf), the village mothers anxiously watch the new, emerging tensions stirred up by the village’s only television set that can only pick up a signal at the top of a hill and that is at the centre of collective, outdoor TV-watching. The female leaders of both religious sides decide to destroy the evil instrument one night, as well as the newspapers that reach them up on their mountain.

But the harm has been done, and boys and men are already looking for trouble. Every little event is interpreted as an aggression and weapons soon come out of hiding.

Faced with this threat, the women decide to recruit five Russian dancers to distract their men. They knock their spouses out and change religions overnight. As morning comes, the most outrageous situations spread throughout the village.

Following in the vein of Italian tragicomedies, Where Do We Go Now? also has a foot firmly set in Eastern cinema and a touch of the musical comedy. However, the initial preconception weakens the dramatic aspect of the film – as when a mother will not reveal that her child has been killed by a stray bullet in order to prevent the situation from inflaming the conflict – and the filmmaker’s good intentions are somewhat watered down by the mechanisms of a story that wants to entertain.

Still, the fundamental message of Lebanese women appalled by the murderous idiocy of their men and the future the men have planned for them is loud and clear.

(Translated from French)