A freewheeling portrayal of the adventures of a resourceful and irreverant teenager in the early stages of the civil war that divided Beirut in two, West Beirut is an assured, but flawed debut work from Lebanese writer-director Ziad Doueiri. Much will be made of Doueiri's apprenticeship as Quentin Tarantino's assistant cameraman, but the connection is unfair and misleading. Largely autobiographical, West Beirut is less stylised and more naturalistic than any Tarantino film.
Set in 1975, the film is kick-started by the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon. Self-assured class clown Tarek (played by the director's charismatic younger brother, Rami Doueri), is excluded from the classroom just in time to witness the bloody massacre of 30 bus passengers marking the start of the conflict. With school closed -- apparently for good -- the war subsequently grants Tarek and his friend Omar (Mohamad Chamas) unbridled freedom to discover friendship, adventure and, in the shape Tarek's new Christian neighbour May (Rola Al Amin), the opposite sex. The only downside seems to be that the store which develops their Super 8 films is suddenly in a designated "no go" area, and a mission to drop off a film quickly turns into a threatening showdown with border militia. If the teenagers' worries are trivial in the face of falling bombs, they are certainly authentic.
West Beirut is frequently funny, its humour largely delivered by wry references to the wider culture of that time: a Jackie Chan poster in a teenage bedroom or a "Saturday Night Fever" bell-bottomed style strut down the street. Like all teenagers, Tarek and Omar are interested in movies and music but as Muslims who haven't read a word of the Koran, they can't quite fathom Omar's father's new found belief that those two cultures are the devil's work. "You mean Paul Anka is in service to Satan?" questions Tarek. It's moments such as these which lift the film.
But while Doueiri's film convincingly conveys his very personal interpretation of the events in Lebanon in 1975, West Beirut is perhaps too subjective. With its digressions and moments of inconsequential high drama the plot, like the city it portrays, is prevented from moving forward. Sadly, it's as if in service to his truth, Doueri has failed his film.
Reviewed by Monika Maurer
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