Le Monde du Lundi 14 avril 2008

« Sous les Bombes »

Une libanaise en robe décolletée d’un bleu électrique court parmi les rues d’une ville en ruine. Vêtement de femme urbaine en temps de paix d’un côté. Scène de guerre de l’autre. Dès le début du film, l’image suggère l’irruption d’une violence soudaine, qui prend tout le monde par surprise. La libanaise est bel et bien une actrice, Nada Abou Farhat, mais les « décors »-si l’on peut utiliser le mot dans ce contexte- sont réels. La scène est tournée au Liban sud en pleine guerre.

Juillet 2006 : Israël bombarde le Liban, en représailles à la capture de deux soldats israéliens par le Hezbollah libanais. Quand l’opération se termine le 14 août, le Liban dénombre 1000 morts dont quelques 30% d’enfants. Des infrastructures et des quartiers entiers sont détruits. Amnesty International dénonce des crimes de guerre israéliens dans plusieurs villages du Liban sud.

Le 25 juillet, le cinéaste libanais Philippe Aractingi, auteur de la comédie musicale « Bosta », filme en direct une nuit de bombardements. Images saisissantes d’immeubles réduits en poussière en quelques secondes. Images bouleversantes, au lendemain matin, des tonnes de murs écroulés au sol, sous lesquelles gisent des dizaines de corps piégés par l’attaque. Elles seront le générique de Sous les Bombes, un film qui tient autant du documentaire que de la fiction, primé au Festival de Luchon.

Côté fiction, l’histoire, écrite avec le scénariste Michel Léviant, est celle de Zeina, une libanaise expatriée à Dubai avec son mari, dont elle est en train de divorcer. Pour protéger leur fils, Karim, des disputes conjugales, elle l’envoie chez sa sœur, dans leur maison familiale de Kherbet Selem, au Liban Sud. Mais la guerre éclate, et Zeina se précipite à Beyrouth pour récupérer son fils. Elle trouve avec difficulté un taxi qui l’emmène en pleine zone de guerre. Son chauffeur, Tony (Georges Khabbaz), vient lui aussi du Sud, d’un village chrétien et d’une famille qui a collaboré avec l’armée israélienne lors de la guerre de 1982. A Kherbet Selem, ils trouvent un village réduit en ruine. A la recherche de Karim, ils vont sillonner le Sud, de villages en couvents. Au cours de ce voyage, ils vont apprendre à se connaître et à partager leurs blessures.

Côté documentaire, « Sous les Bombes » comprend de nombreuses scènes réelles, que Philippe Aractingi a filmées sur place. Les routes éventrées, les ponts détruits, les villageois cherchant à localiser les mines à fragmentation : rien n’est simulé. L’enterrement des morts de Canaa, ville lourdement bombardée par Israël, dans une mise en scène sinistre du Hezbollah, est un véritable document. Presque toutes les personnes du film sont des Libanais qui jouent leur propre rôle-femmes pleurant la mort de leurs enfants, jeune maronites choqués qu’Israël, l’allié d’hier, ait aussi bombardé les villages chrétiens.

Film d’urgence, Sous les Bombes est une réaction à chaud, celle d’un cinéaste libanais excédé par la succession des guerres. Il dédie son long-métrage à tous les civils, hommes, femmes, enfants, «  qui sont morts écrasés sous les bombes. »

Télérama

mercredi 16 avril 2008

« Sous les Bombes »

 Eté 2006, sur le port de Beyrouth. Une femme affolée descend du bateau. Elle est revenue en catastrophe au Liban pour récupérer son petit garçon, dont elle est sans nouvelle depuis le début des bombardements israéliens. Contre une forte somme d’argent, un chauffeur de taxi accepte de la conduire dans le Sud, à la recherche de l’enfant.

Sous Les Bombes donne souvent l’impression d’un documentaire sur le vif. Il faut dire que le tournage a débuté en pleine guerre et s’est poursuivi dans les premiers jours du cessez-le feu. Philippe Aractingi a filmé « à chaud » le retour des casques bleus, l’exhumation éprouvante des victimes civiles, une manifestation du parti chiite Hezbollah. Mais aussi et surtout les immeubles en ruines, les ponts détruits, et la douleur des réfugiés qui racontent la mort de leurs proches ensevelis sous les décombres. « Les maisons, ça se reconstruit, mais toutes ces vies perdues ? » déplore une femme en une phrase qui résume trente années d’histoire du Liban. Dans ce film plein de fièvre et de colère, la dimension de témoignage ne se développe jamais au détriment de la fiction, d’une tension et d’une émotion constante. Le mérite en revient également aux comédiens Nada Abou Farhat et Georges Khabbaz, impressionnants aussi bien dans les scènes improvisées que dans celles plus écrites, tournées dans le taxi et à l’hôtel.

Samuel Douhaire

LE JOURNAL DU DIMANCHE-13 Avril 2008

ECRAN TOTAL, 12/02/2008

Le succès de la semaine

« Sous les bombes » et … sous les prix

Ecrit par Michel Léviant et Philippe Aractingi, ce dernier en signant la mise en scène, Sous les bombes raconte l’histoire terriblement émouvante de Zeina, une Libanaise chiite qui, en compagnie de Toni, un chauffeur de taxi chrétien, part à la recherche de son fils dans un Liban ravagé par la guerre. Le voyage rapprochera les deux protagonistes alors que, partout autour, la mort frappe… A Luchon, on ne parlait (presque) que de cette « grande » fiction. Fort logiquement, Sous les bombes, qui a été produit par Capa Cinéma, Starfield Productions, Art’Mell et Fantascope Production pour Arte, a raflé le Grand Coup de cœur du jury, ce dernier, présidé par Pierre Mondy, lui décernant par ailleurs le Prix de la musique originale – signée René Aubry et Lazare Boghossian. La fiction réalisée par Philippe Aractingi s’est également vu attribuer le Prix du public de la Dépêche du Midi. Sous les bombes sera diffusé sur Arte le 19 Avril, avant de connaître une sortie salle fortement méritée

Under The Bombs

3 weeks ago 26th Feb 09:30

In the summer of 2006, Lebanon was relentlessly bombed for 34 days in a row. Bold and riveting, Under the Bombs is Philippe Aractingi’s captivating account of what happens next.

Amidst the smoke and turmoil, the beautiful , wealthy Zeina returns from abroad in a frivolously bright blue dress that starkly contrasts with the dark reality she faces.

Desperate for a cab, she meets Tony, an oddly endearing driver who, because of her beautiful eyes, risks the perilous drive to the heavily affected southern region to search for her missing sister and son.

Against a scarred terrain of sun-drenched ruins, bombed-out roads, and lush lands peppered with live cluster shells, Zeina frantically grasps at strands of information to uncover her family’s whereabouts.

Meanwhile, an unlikely intimacy takes root between Zeina and Tony that eludes romantic clichés to become another kind of love: the recognition of a shared humanity that renders differences of class, religion, and politics irrelevant.

Shot 10 days into the actual bombings with many nonactors, Aractingi’s sophisticated film hovers willfully between narrative and documentary, lending rare authenticity and access to an emotionally powerful, fast-paced, and haunting story.

Nuanced, complex characters illuminate the personal trauma of war, effectively leaving behind the reactionary politics of either warring side, Hezbollah or the Israeli military.

Instead, we are offered the possibility of salvaged hope, new beginnings, and ultimately, peace--from under the bombs. --© Sundance Film Festival

Starring: Bshara Atallah, Rawia Elchab, Nada Farhat, Georges Khabbaz

Under the Bombs is released 21st March

Film reviews: Under the Bombs

Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 21/03/2008

Page 2 of 2

UNDER THE BOMBS

Directed by: Philippe Aractingi

Written by: Michel Léviant, Philippe Aractingi

Starring: Bshara Atallah, Bshara Atallay, Rawia Elchab, Nada Abou Farhat, Georges Khabbaz

Distributed by: Artificial Eye

Film will be released in the U.K. on March 21st 2008

Review by Michael Edwards

This is a truly visceral film, I can’t think of a better way to put it. Often crude in its devices and occasionally a little aggressive in getting it’s points across, it nonetheless stands as a poignant monument to a conflict in which the filmmaker had a personal insight and a desperate need to express. Writer and director Philippe Aractingi is from Beirut and Under the Bombs is being billed as his ‘angry reaction’ to Israeli invasion of Lebanon on July 12th 2006. In fact this is probably not just a piece of media hype, when a film begins shooting a mere ten days after the start of the conflict it takes as it’s setting - you know it’s a gut response.

The tale centres around Zeina (Nada Abou Farhat), a resident of Dubai who, in the midst of a divorce, sent her son to stay with her sister in Southern Lebanon. Once the fighting breaks out she panics and goes in a desperate search for her loved ones. She is instantly held up by the shortage of drivers willing to take her into the treacherous south, which is now heavily mined, riddled with booby traps and still carries the threat of further military incursions. Fortunately for her she finds Tony (Georges Khabbaz), a Christian who seems to do almost anything for a price. As they toil through the perilous journey the two are drawn closer together, and we are presented with fascinated portraits of a woman whose inner strength is tested to the limit, and a man whose ambiguous character and occasionally skewed sense of morality develops and continues to reveal hidden depths in a myriad of testing circumstances.

If the plot sometimes lapses into contrived moments it is because this is a film that really has an axe to grind, the whole essence of the screen is a bellowed roar of frustration at the destruction wrought upon a nation. The footage takes in countless homes reduced to rubble, twisted and smashed bridges and whole streets littered with debris. But perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Under the Bombs is that Aractingi hired only two actors, the rest of the characters in the film (who ranged from refugees to journalists, soldiers to religious folk) were all played by themselves. This lends the already viscerally resonant film a priceless aura of truth that overshadows any of the grievances the director is at pains to air through his plot twists and documentary-esque cinematography.

An outstandingly engaging film that works on so many levels, be it the artistic interest inherent in so clear an authorial expression of frustration, the honesty of a film made largely with real people who experienced the conflict taken as the subject f the film, or simply an emotional journey through a war-torn region. This one is a must-see.

UNDER THE BOMBS is out in selected UK cinemas on 21st March.

« Under the Bombs », Variety, Alissa Simon, septembre 2007

Under the Bombs

Sous les Bombes (France-Lebanon-U.K.)

A Capa Cinema (France)/Starfield Prods.(U.K.)/Art'mell (France)/Fantascope

Prods. (Lebanon) production, in association with Rhamsa Prods., Cie

Cinematographique Europeene, Cedar Films, Piste Rouge, Every Pictures.

(International sales: Memento Films, Paris.) Produced by Herve Chabalier,

Francois Cohen-Seat, Paul Raphael, Philippe Aractingi. Directed by Philippe

Aractingi. Screenplay, Michel Leviant, Aractingi.

With: Nada Abou Farhat, Georges Khabbaz, Rawya El Chab.

(Arabic, French, English dialogue)

By ALISSA SIMON

Shot in part during the 2006 summer war between Hezbollah and Israel which devastated Lebanon's infrastructure and civilian population, the docu-fiction road movie "Under the Bombs" plays like a cri de coeur. Second feature by Lebanese helmer Philippe Aractingi ("Bosta") combines real footage of the massive destruction with a somewhat forced feeling narrative about a Shiite woman searching for her missing son with the aid of a Christian cab driver. In spite of problems of tone, first look at

this subject from the region reps a sought-after fest item, with broadcast and limited arthouse play also likely.

Imperious, upper class Zeina (Nada Abou Farhat), turns up in Beirut at the start

of the ceasefire, having traveled in a roundabout way from Dubai. Improbably

clad in a chic, cleavage revealing blue dress, she looks for a taxi to take her to

the still dangerous south.

The only driver willing to make the trip is Tony (Georges Khabbaz), who comes

from the area. Despite Zeina's frosty disdain for his friendliness, he gets her to

reveal her mission. She's seeking young son Karim who was with her sister in

Kherbet Selem, a small village. Ironically, she'd hoped to spare him domestic

battles while she and architect hubby ironed out their divorce.

When they arrive at the village, Zeina's sister's house is totaled and Karim

nowhere to be found. Smitten, sympathetic Tony agrees to stay with her until

they locate the boy.

So begins an odyssey that encompasses testimony from various victims of the

war, sights of bombed out buildings, highways and bridges, a Hezbollah rally,

the arrival of peacekeeping forces, and journalists in action. Shot during the

fighting, apparently without a script, these improvised scenes score with their

emotional authenticity.

Less successful are scripted fictional sequences of Zeina and Tony bonding.

Two interludes at a hotel are especially awkward:The first when Tony has

surprisingly graphic sex with a receptionist (Rawya El Chab), and the second

when he performs what comes off as a silly mating dance for Zeina.

The different thesping styles of the two leads (she, high melodrama; he, low

comedy) don't mesh well at first, but reach a more even keel by the poignant end.

Tech credits, which include news footage, are a mixed bag.

Camera (color, DV, Beta), Nidal Abdel Khalek; editor, Deena Charara; music, Rene Aubry, Lazare Boghossian; sound,

Mouhab Chanesaz; associate producers, Claude Chelli, Nathalie Leyendecker. Reviewed at Venice Film Festival

(Venice Days), Sept. 1, 2007. Running time: 98 MIN.

« War-themed pics battle in Venice. ‘Bombs’, ‘Disengagement’, screening

at event » , Variety, Ali Jaafar, septembre 2007

War-themed pics battle in Venice

'Bombs,' 'Disengagement' screening at event

By ALI JAAFAR

Hollywood fired the opening shots of its campaign to bring the war in Iraq and

on terror to U.S. auds with the Venice world preems of Brian De Palma's

"Redacted" and Paul Haggis' "In the Valley of Elah."

Meanwhile, Middle Eastern helmers battled to have their own voices heard in

the debate.

Lebanese helmer Philippe Aractingi's "Under the Bombs," about a Lebanese

mother's search for her young son during last year's war with Israel, and Israeli

helmer Amos Gitai's "Disengagement," starring Juliette Binoche in the story of

an Israeli family's struggles during the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, both vied for

attention at this year's fest. The two American pics, the first of a slew of Mideast

related films set for release in the coming months, bowed in the official

competition. "Disengagement" screened as a late addition to the out-ofcompetition

Masters section, and "Under the Bombs" featured in the Venice

Days sidebar.

Aractingi's pic, partly shot during last year's hostilities, received a lengthy

standing ovation following its Lido bow. Gallic sales agent Memento is handling

international sales, and Mideast rights have been picked up by Lebanon's

Planete, which will co-distribute with Aractingi's shingle Fantascope. "Under the

Bombs" will open in Lebanon in December on eight prints, with a rollout

elsewhere in the Mideast to follow.

"It is very important for us to be a part of this conversation," said Aractingi. "Our

problems in the Middle East concern the rest of the world. I was amazed when I

went to the States by how many American people were talking about the Iraqi

problem while there were no Iraqis talking about their own country." The desire

to get people talking in America is high on the agenda for De Palma and

Haggis, who are both highly critical of the U.S. media's reporting of the war.

Though both films deal with Iraq and its bloody aftermath, the helmers have

followed different paths.

"Redacted" is set almost entirely in Iraq, with Jordanian locations doubling up

for Samarra, as the pic follows a platoon of U.S. troops. Shot on digital in a faux

video-diary style, De Palma's harrowing film includes scenes of Iraqi civilians

mowed down by American armory, U.S. troops blown to pieces by a roadside

explosive device and beheaded by insurgents, as well as a shocking nightvision

setpiece that features the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by two

drunk U.S. soldiers who kill her family. Pic's title refers to the Army's policy of

blacking out passages from soldiers' letters to and from home.

"Everything in the movie is based on things that happened, but one of the

difficulties in making the film was navigating through the legal issues. We were

forced to fictionalize things that were actually real. Even with the montage (of

photos showing actual Iraqi civilians killed during the war), we weren't allowed

the dignity of showing the faces of the people. The great irony of 'Redacted' was

it was also redacted," De Palma said.

Haggis opts for a subtler and probably more audience-friendly approach. His

tale of an ex-military policeman (Tommy Lee Jones) searching for his son after

he goes AWOL on his return from Iraq is aimed squarely at America's

heartland, with a prominent cast including Charlize Theron and Susan

Sarandon.

Pic got early backing from Clint Eastwood, who shopped the script to Warners

in 2003 at the height of President Bush's popularity and before public opposition

to the war had grown.

"I think it was very important for me to tell the story from a nonpartisan point of

view," Haggis said. "We're all as guilty straight across the board. We all

supported this, and even those of us who didn't are just as responsible because

we let it occur."

Ironically, all four helmers are anticipating controversy in their own countries.

Haggis has already been attacked by conservative websites, while Gitai saw a

deal with Israeli pubcaster Channel 1 to buy TV rights to his back catalog nixed

after board members complained about his "leftist" politics.

"I think that the best thing someone can do for the country he loves, his own

country, is to be critical," Gitai said. "For me, being critical is being

compassionate. It means that you want things to get better. Strong cultures

don't need cheap PR."

Gitai has received a boost from the Haifa Film Festival, which selected the pic

as its opener, a first for an Israeli film. Fest runs Sept. 27- Oct. 4.With a slew of

Iraq war films set to open by the end of the year, including "The Kingdom,"

"Rendition," "Lions for Lambs" and "Charlie Wilson's War," it remains to be seen

whether auds worldwide get combat fatigue.

If the early reaction to "Redacted" and "Elah" is anything to go by, however,

auds will be hard-pressed to avoid the tough questions asked by these films.

« Cinema: Lebanon; ‘Under the Bombs’, first film at Venice », ANSA, 03

septembre 2007

CINEMA: LEBANON; 'UNDER THE BOMBS', FIRST FILM AT VENICE

The war in Lebanon of 2006 comes to the cinema, and brings the real bombs

with it. 'Sous les Bombes', presented in preview at the 64th Venice Film

Festival, is not only a film on the war but also a film inside the war. Shot during

the Israeli bombing in the south of the country, the film by Philippe Aractingi is a

documentary, a love story, a work of civil commitment and is the first testimony

of the latest Lebanese conflict to be taken to the big screen. The origin of the

film, as the director himself explained to ANSAmed, gives the measure of the

atypical work, almost an experiment started without producers, without script,

only with some scenes shot in the summer of 2006, and which has become a

documentary of 90 minutes where fiction literally imposes over reality. "In the

beginning we shot only material on the war, then we found the producers and in

the end we wrote a script which the actors acted involving in the fiction the

people whom they met on the streets while we were filming," the director said.

Next to the two actors playing the main characters - a woman who has to find

her missing son in the dangerous area of Tyre and Sidon, and a taxi driver who

accompanies her in her search - there are no other actors but real people,

refugees, common graves, war correspondents and even French and Italian

soldiers who land on the coasts of Lebanon after the UN gave the green light to

the UNIFIL mission. "The entire work on the film, from the search of producers

to post production, lasted only one year," the director explained, pointing out

that those times, not at all traditional, are witnesses of his urgency to say

something on the new war in Lebanon. "I was furious for the umpteenth conflict

which brought destruction and death in my country and I shot the entire material

following the instinct which pushed me to say something in a hurry," said

Aractingi, who wanted to act as amplifier to the desperation of the Lebanese

forced to cope with the loss of their loved ones and with a country without either

streets or houses anymore. Despite the fact that he wanted to show what was

happening, once again, in his country, Aractingi did not insert in any scene

either bodies or politics, because, he explained, the only thing that he was

interested in was the dismay and fear of the population. Besides, death is

everywhere, and practically in every scene: in the coffins of the common grave

of Tyre, in the debris of the houses from which no one knows who has survived,

in the counts of the survivors who seek their loved ones at the end of the day. "I

wanted to make a film on the war and the only way for me was to involve the

reality, working inside as if a natural set," said the director for his second fulllength

film who however is not a novice with the documentaries, having filmed

more than 40. Aractingi explained that the film has various defects because of

the impossibility to film again the scenes, since

it was impossible to recreate the external conditions, but it has great value as a

testimony.

(ANSA).

SCREEN, 14/02/2007

LEBANON PROVES A CANNES SUCCESS

By Antonia Carver

Lebanon, unlike most other Arab nations this year, is having a very strong Cannes. In addition to Danielles Arbid’s A lost man and Nadine Labakis’s hot comedy Caramel in Directors’ Fortnight, and a showcase of recent productions as part of Tous les Cinemas du Monde, the state-funded Fondation Liban Cinema is promoting a raft of titles in development and pre-production. The level of creative output is extraordinary given the country’s political troubles and collapsed economy.

Ziad Doueiri has The Attack in development with Focus Features, but most other film-makers are turning to European funding. Dima El-Horr’s Every Day is a Holiday, a Lebanese (Taxi Films), French (Cine-Sud) and German (Niko Film) Production, in pre-production.

Thierry Lenouvel’s  Cine-Sud also co-produced Michael Kammoun’s 2006 festival favourite Falafel. Chadi Zeneddine is in post with Waiting for… Beirut, and developing Brahim, Tell Me Your Story, both co-productions with Samuel Chauvin’s Promenade Film.

Bosta director Philippe Aractingi is in Cannes to promote Under the Bombs, a co-production between Paul Raphael’s London-based Starfield Productions and Henri Magalon’s Paris-based Maybe Movies, set during last summer’s Israeli attack on southern Lebanon. In the UK, the film, now in post-production, has been sold to Maiden Voyage for theatrical, and the producers are in talks with Channel 4 for TV. ARTE have taken French TV rights.

Director Assad Fouladkar, best known for his 2001 film When Maryam Spoke Out, has recently signed with Youssef Chahine and Gabriel Khoury’s Cairo-based Misr International to produce two films, Cedar Tree and Halal Sex. Cedar Tree is likely to be an Australian co-production, with shooting due to start in November.

Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige are in post with a short, starring Catherine Deneuve, and at the Cannes Atelier with I Can’t Go Home.

Meanhile, Colette Naufal’s Beirut International Film Festival (October 3-10) is pre-celebrating its tenth anniversary with a party at the Carlton Beach tonight co-hosted by Yeslam Bin Laden, Osama Bin Laden’s estranged half-brother.

It is the first time the millionaire has lent his support to Arab Cinema, hopes are high that his investment may extend to production as well as festivals.

SCREEN, 14/02/2007

CEDAR BRANCHES OUT INTO MUSICAL COMEDY

By Ali Jaafar

Israeli helmer Joseph Cedar is giving war a miss with his next pic.

He’s swapping the serious message of “Beaufort,” about the Israeli army’s hasty withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, for an as-yet-untitled musical comedy in English and Hebrew, and partly lensed in Israel.

“Beaufort” made its competition bow here Wednesday and Cedar, at the press confab with producer David Silber, Thesps Oshri Cohen, Itay Tiran, Eli Eltonyo and co-scribe Ron Leshem, batted away numerous questions about pic’s political leanings with all the skill of aseasoned politico.

“We had modest pretensions. We didn’t want to put one specific political message out,” said Cedar. “If anything , the film is a cry for help. We were fuelled by knowing we were doing something life or death.”

Pic, being handled by Bavaria Film, has been sold to J-Bics in Thailand and there is strong interest from byers in the U.K., France and Italy.

While Bavaria execs are confident about wrapping up those deals imminently, “We’re being quite picky about a U.S. sale because we believe this story has a strong potential there, “ said Bavaria Film Intl. topper Thorsten Ritter.
”Beaufort” warpped in June, only a month before the outbreak of war between Israel and Hezbollah, and is based on the novel by Leshem, whose uncle died in the first week of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

The irony of “Beaufort” depicting the end of Israel’s 18-year misadventure in Lebanon, being made just as conflict erupted again hasn’t persuaded Cedar to return for a follow-up.

“I’m done with this story. I’d be extremely curious to see a Lebanese version of these episodes,” he said.

Cedar may get his wish with Philippe Aractingi’s “After the Summer Rain”.

Lebanese helmer, who scored country’s biggest hit last year with “Bosta”, is in post with aproject that follows a Lebanese woman’s hunt for her missing son during the recent war.

International co-production is getting coin from London-based Starfield Prods.and France’s Maybe Movies. U.K. distrib Maiden Voyage has bought theatrical rights, with Arte handling pic in France and Arab shingle ART releasing pic in the Mideast.

Sundance 2008: Live from Park City

24 January 2008

'Under the Bombs' gets the prize for reality

One of the best things about independent film sometimes is the story behind the story.

Lack of budget not only spurs creativity but can make for some amazing anecdotes. Like in the case of "Under the Bombs," a French-Lebanese production I caught the other night after the strong and effusive recommendation by one of the Sundance volunteers.

Shot in the summer of 2006, just four days after the Israeli bombing of southern Lebanon had stopped, "Under the Bombs" follows a woman who hires a cabdriver to take her into the war zone to find her missing son and sister. For several days, they pass through the war-torn area, following the sometimes bloody trail of her loved ones who were displaced several times.

Director Philippe Aractingi got the idea two days after the bombings started, and as soon as they had ceased, he was in the thick of the destruction with two actors, no script and only the vaguest sense of where they were going. The result is some of the most thrilling footage of the ravages of war ever put in a feature film.

When U.N. soldiers arrived, Aractingi was there with his actors, improvising scenes among them and sometimes asking them to participate. The same was true for villagers who had to suffer the bombing. They told their stories to the filmmakers, then they were asked to repeat them in front of the cameras. It's the kind of verisimilitude Hollywood would need a lavish budget and a crack staff of CGI artists to match.

I've heard from several people that "Under the Bombs" was one of the only movies at the fest this year that really got them in the heart. With a lineup that includes so many dark subjects, this is one that really seems to put some emotions behind the pain.

-- Patrick Day

(Photo courtesy Memento Films)

Under The Bombs (Sous Le Bombes) (15)

Director
Philippe Aractingi

Starring
Nada Abou Farhat, Georges Khabbaz, Rawya El Chab, Bshara Atallah

The ViewLondon Review

****

Review byMatthew Turner20/03/2008

Opens Friday 21 March 2008

Four out of Five stars
Running time: 98 mins

Emotionally engaging, impressively directed and superbly acted drama that uses authentic Lebanon locations to devastating effect.

What's it all about?
Directed by Philippe Aractingi, Under the Bombs stars Nada Abou Farhat as Zeina, a Shiite Muslim woman who sends her young son to live with her sister in southern Lebanon while she goes through a messy divorce back home in Dubai. However, after a round of bombings from Israel, Zeina loses touch with her sister and her son, so she travels to Beirut, hoping to find a taxi driver to take her south.

When she arrives, only one taxi driver is prepared to take her, a shifty-looking Christian named Tony (Georges Khabbaz), who seems to fancy his chances. Initially, Zeina's attitude towards Tony is understandably frosty, but as they search for her son, the devastation of their surroundings coupled with the collected grief of the people they meet begins to affect both of them and they come to understand each other a little better.

The Good
The performances are excellent. Farhat convincingly conveys Zeina's slowly thawing personality, while Khabbaz gradually reveals more and more about his character so that you find your distrust of Tony gradually ebbing away, just as Zeina does.

Aractingi films in a semi-documentary style, which is considerably heightened by filming amid scenes of horrifying devastation – for example, we see many destroyed buildings and villages and there are several scenes where the taxi can go no further because of a huge hole in the road.

The Great
In addition, Aractingi uses real people as extras, so their comments on lost family members are genuinely moving. The film also delivers some shocking statistics: the 2006 bombing of Lebanon by Hezbollah left 1,200 dead and over a million homeless and yet, according to the news, there were no casualties.

Worth seeing?
In short, Under the Bombs is an engaging, well acted and impressively directed drama that is both thought-provoking and extremely moving. Recommended.

Too often the news images of violence and suffering in the Middle East depict the civilian victims as a passive, dehumanised mass of grief, lacking any sense of individual personality.

We feel sympathy, but in an abstract, resigned way, perhaps thinking “it will never change” or even worse, that somehow “they’re used to it”. Philippe Aractingi’s powerful, harrowing film offers a welcome antidote to such thinking.

Without being overtly judgmental or political, it makes clear that every death in such circumstances impacts on the victim’s family, friends and community and that no matter how many times a region has suffered tragedy the people living there never become impervious to pain, of any variety.

It opens in August 2006, when Israel responded to rocket attacks from southern Lebanon by Hezbollah militants with a 33-day campaign of airstrikes. On the day a UN-brokered ceasefire comes into effect Zeina (Nada Abou Farhat) a well-heeled Muslim expatriate arrives in Beirut from her new home in Dubai. Her son Karim is staying with his aunt in a village in the south, and she is desperate for transport to take her there.

The war has destroyed all public transport links, and despite the ceasefire, none of the taxi drivers are willing to go into a danger zone. Eventually one of the cabbies, a Lebanese Christian called Tony (Geroges Khabbaz) agrees to take her.

Initially Zeina is disdainful towards her hired chauffeur, and Tony regards the trip merely as a difficult gig for good money. But as they continue their journey through a war-ravaged land they grow to know and respect each other more.

But when they arrive at Zeina’s home village they find the house in ruins. Her sister is dead and though Karim has survived his whereabouts is unknown. Zeina is determined to find him, and Tony is equally determined not to leave her alone...

Shot on location and using largely non-professional performers (apart from the two leads) Aractingi’s film often feels more documentary than drama. It’s not an easy watch by any means but it is a genuine and heartfelt attempt to give a human face to the sufferings of a region blighted by war.

As the film makes clear, Lebanon has suffered such attacks again and again over the years. The film’s title could apply to the victims buried by rubble and the region itself, where homes, communities and lives (Christian and Muslim) are constantly disrupted or cut short by the greater Middle East conflict.

As Tony’s cab drives through a landscape of great natural beauty, but scarred by bomb craters and ruined buildings, where roads often become gaping voids or bridges are useless stumps, it becomes easy to see why the population feel such hatred towards Israel and look to Hezbollah as a symbol of resistance, however one-sided their ‘war’ seems – and however much retribution their actions invite.

But this film is not a hectoring polemic, rather a passionate plea for understanding and empathy. The two leads are terrific. As more details about their lives are revealed (Zeina sent Karim to live with his aunt because of her deteriorating relationship with her husband; Tony has a brother in Israel and dreams of moving to Germany and opening a restaurant with him) you care more and more about them, and about how their journey will end.

The final scenes are downbeat, but the film’s overriding message – of the need to allow a country to be rebuilt in peace and the power of people from differing heritages and backgrounds to find a common humanity – is one of hope. Every one should see it – not out of some sense of ‘right on’ political duty but because it’s a damn fine piece of cinema.

Under the Bombs

***

(Cert 15)

Peter Bradshaw
Friday March 21, 2008
The Guardian

Lebanese director Philippe Aractingi has made a heartfelt road movie, with lacerating images of Israel's recent war in Lebanon. Paradoxically, by appearing in a fiction feature, these images achieve a reality that is never fully conveyed in television news reporting. With remarkable resourcefulness, Aractingi has simply taken his actors, camera and crew into the destroyed landscape and partly improvised a heartwrenching film from what he has found there. Nada Abou Farhat plays Zeina, a haughty, wealthy and beautiful woman who arrives in Beirut from Dubai in the summer of 2006, after the Israeli Defence Force's catastrophically misjudged bombardment of southern Lebanon. Desperately, she begs for a taxi driver to take her to a village in the south, to discover what has happened there to her young son. The only person who agrees is Tony (Georges Khabbaz), who appears to be louche, unreliable, in it for the cash. But Zeina's desperate quest opens a long-buried wound in Tony: his relationship with a fugitive brother who, during the last war in 1982, joined the collaborationist South Lebanese Army. Zeina and Tony are the oddest of odd couples, and I suspect Aractingi was never entirely sure how much sexual tension there should really be between them. But these human nuances are not as important as the vision of Lebanon's extraordinary, almost surreal landscapes of destruction and hurt.

TotalFilm.com

Under The Bombs - Film Review

“A fictional story set in harsh reality”: that’s how Lebanese writer/director Philippe Aractingi pitches his heartfelt road movie. Shot during Israel’s 33-day bombardment of Lebanon in 2006, it follows wealthy Shiite woman Zeina (Nada Abou Farhat) and Christian taxi driver Tony (Georges Khabbaz) as they travel from Beirut to the country’s devastated south, in search of Zeina’s missing sister and son. Under The Bombs is steeped in authenticity: dramatic news footage is woven into the story, while all the supporting characters (refugees, soldiers, foreign journos, Hezbollah supporters, aid workers) play themselves. Steering clear of political sermonising – or voyeuristic images of corpses – Aractingi poignantly conveys the suffering imposed on innocents in wartime.