For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.Eliane Raheb’s documentaries stress that stories are never black and white, and what people say may be an unconscious reflection of what they want their interlocutor to believe rather than what is factually true. In other words, Lebanon in a nutshell, accompanied by evocative songs of Feyrouz and Najat Al Saghira. Theatrical yet unable to sing in public despite having a fine operatic voice, Jelelaty is a bundle of contradictions, which of course makes him a perfect subject for Raheb’s generous, nonjudgmental approach.Īnimated sequences are conceived as sly commentary, their surrealism helping to wittily underscore analyses, such as a delirious montage of Syrian rockets and penises, giving a Freudian spin to the invasion of Lebanon while also connecting it to Jelelaty’s sexual-humiliation fantasies, which themselves are also tied up with emasculation, religion, the Civil War and the ever-hovering presence of the mother. Her persistent yet nonthreatening approach is what keeps him from completely clamming up, and it’s worth considering how her provocations work in tandem with Jelelaty’s friend in Spain, the fabulous Spanish drag queen Rubén Cardoso, whose fearless (and very funny) comments and unadorned interrogations disarm multiple barriers. Raheb brings him back to Lebanon to confront his war years, challenging the recollections he’s willing to share and refusing to humor his blanket claims of not recalling key incidents. Once in Spain he discarded considerable emotional baggage and embraced a more fully realized life, yet when he says he’s happy with himself, few will believe it, especially after admitting he’s never known what it’s like to feel true love for a partner. When he was of age, Jelelaty fought with the Lebanese Forces Christian militia it’s a period he’s suppressed, though that’s likely too simplistic a diagnosis since his claims of not remembering don’t always ring true. The film is helpfully divided into chapters, but Raheb is more aware than most that life doesn’t fit so neatly into sections, and themes and storylines regularly bleed into each other. He was 12 when the Civil War literally exploded his life, which became a jumble of inferiority complexes, forbidden desire and juvenile religious fanaticism manifested in self-mortification and an obsession with Christological images.
By contrast, his Syrian mother looms large, her superior air as a daughter of Damascus creating a jarring dissonance in her son’s head given how his teachers drove home the idea that Syrians in Lebanon were dangerous outsiders (conveyed through hilarious animation). Jelelaty was born in Beirut in 1963 to a well-off Christian family: His father remains a spectral, mostly silent presence whose unprocessed impact on his son’s psyche probably requires more than one documentary. Ryusuke Hamaguchi's 'A Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy' Explores Japan's Gender Dynamics Via Intimate Shorts 'Courage' Review: Powerful Doc Captures Spirit of Popular Uprising in Belarus 'Azor' Film Review: A Private Swiss Banker Enters the Argentine Junta's Heart of Darkness While the gay angle makes the film attractive to a reliably receptive audience, its insights into Lebanon’s tortured history offer an equally marketable approach that should expand viewership. Then with deliciously biting animated collages by Fadi El Samra she adds surreal layers that help expand Jelelaty’s experiences into something outwardly abstract yet carrying resonances far beyond the protagonist’s personal story.
In “Those Who Remain,” the director was heard but not really seen in “Miguel’s War” she’s very much a part of the action as she takes Michel Jelelaty on a journey through his psyche via a variety of creative means, from simple conversations to casting calls in which actors play his parents’ roles.
, and with humor, honesty and a common humanity it can be brought into the open for potential healing. With “Miguel’s War” she goes one step further, diving headfirst into the role of prodding psychologist to coax out a heap of repression from her subject, a gay Lebanese man self-exiled in Spain who’s spent his adult life keeping everything buried. Eliane Raheb’s documentaries stress that stories are never black and white, and what people say may be an unconscious reflection of what they want their interlocutor to believe rather than what is factually true.
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