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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
Kiarostami's films depict Iran as the scene of universal tumult, a place where people puzzle over the same kinds of human dilemmas everyone else does. Other films, such as the documentary "The English Sheik and the Yemeni Gentlemen" (2000), attempt to capture the vast differences between West and East. This film documents life in one of the least-known and most exotic countries in the Middle East: Yemen, a coastal outpost of conservatism beneath Saudi Arabia. The film follows Bader Ben Hirsi, a 27-year-old British filmmaker of Yemeni descent, as he travels back to his father's homeland and meets a British expatriate who has been living in Yemen for years. The two roam the breathtakingly beautiful country -- lush, jagged mountains, medieval mud-brick and alabaster cities, brilliant white-sand beaches. The film is a thoughtful meditation on the notion of "belonging" to a place, as the English expatriate happily tears into meals of roasted sheepshead and chews gat leaf (an intoxicating local plant) like a native, while his Yemeni visitor gazes awkwardly on.
Despite a seemingly relentless struggle with censorship, some Middle Eastern filmmakers have produced work that addresses -- often directly -- the issues of politics, war and religion; their films represent those who support extremist governments as well as those who quietly rebel against them. These films frequently personify an intense anger directed at the United States, but they also convey the mixed emotions about fanaticism that often plague the weary inhabitants of the region.
"The Gulf War, What Next?" (1991), for example, is a collection of five short films by Arab directors addressing the war in Kuwait from the point of view of those living in the region. The series was commissioned by British television, and demonstrates how events in Kuwait rippled through Islamic countries as far away as Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon. "Research of Shaima," a short documentary by filmmaker Nejia Ben Makbrouk, is particularly striking: Makbrouk travels to bombed-out Baghdad in search of a girl she saw in a television report. Her film juxtaposes footage of the widespread destruction and death she finds in Iraq -- dead children, charred bodies -- with films of American soldiers chanting "I'm going to kill me an Arabian" to a chilling effect.
Not surprisingly, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has long been the focus of the lion's share of Middle Eastern films. The most recent film from the lauded Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai, "Kippur," is a portrait of the 1973 Yom Kippur war between Syria and Israel, in which Gitai fought, from the perspective of a soldier who is skeptical about the issues at stake. "Kippur" is a kind of Israeli "Saving Private Ryan," and helps humanize the decades-old conflict.
Another stunning film about the ravages of war in the Middle East is "West Beirut," (1998), which was directed by Ziad Doueiri and scored by Stewart Copeland (the former drummer of the Police). "West Beirut" follows teenagers Tarek and Omar during the beginnings of the civil war between Christians and Muslims that devastated Lebanon between 1975 and 1990 and turned cosmopolitan Beirut into a bombed-out ruin. As MiGs fly overhead and terrorists machine-gun city buses outside their high school, the two teens try to live a normal life.
Religion, and religious intolerance, are constant themes in Middle Eastern film -- a fact which makes them incredibly useful to Western non-Muslims as they attempt to understand Islam. Arab and Islamic cinema demonstrate with brilliant detail how religion pervades most aspects of everyday life -- and politics -- in the region; it also considers the roots of the extremism that we currently find so hard to fathom.
"Destiny," by the famed Egyptian director Youssef Chahine, examines the historic battle between Islamic fundamentalists and liberals through the story of the enlightened 12th century Andalusian philosopher and Quranic scholar Averroes. Averroes serves as the high judge to the Caliph, who rules Muslim Spain and is battling the Christians to the north. The fundamentalists, however, are struggling for power, and want Averroes' writings burned. It's a terrific quick study on historical religious tensions within the Islamic world, as well as a primer on how fanaticism is viewed by Islamic moderates.
For a more contemporary perspective on fundamentalism, "The Closed Doors" -- another Egyptian film -- offers the story of a young boy in Egypt who adopts a violent strain of fundamentalism during the Gulf War. He finds religion to be a salve for his poverty, sexual frustration and inability to express himself; but the close-minded nature of his new beliefs leads him to murder. "The Closed Doors" resonates with today's current events, giving a personal view on the confluence of youth and extremism in the Middle East.
