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 TWO
FILMS FEATURING CITIES IN DISTRESS NOMINATED FOR BEST FILM
ON PEACE
What happens to otherwise normal people when the amount of
civil disorder is so rampant that authorities cannot stop
the chaos? Contrast Belgradians and Beirutians in two recently
Political Film Society-nominated films: In most Eastern European
countries as the Cold War ended, the answer was for the leaders
to resign, new leaders to rise to power democratically, and
for the situation to calm down as the government was seen
as reasonably legitimate. Not so in Yugoslavia, where ethnic
scapegoating on all sides led to civil war. We have heard
about problems in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo, but what about
Serbia and its capital Belgrade itself? The embargo, the corruption,
the mass demonstrations, the repression, the false propaganda,
and the wars have so impacted Belgradians that the presumption
of civility in interpersonal relations has been totally destroyed,
if we are to accept the premise of the film Cabaret
Balkan, the American title for Bure Baruta
(in France, Baril de poudre, and in England
The Powder Keg), a Serbian film directed by
Goran Paskalievic, based on the play by Dejan Dukovski. The
film consists of a series of episodes in which a minor indiscretion
becomes the basis for major retaliation; all perspective is
lost because nobody is happy, and someone else must be blamed.
Although the film claims that there are one hundred Belgradians
for every police officer, we see none acting to stop the massive
chaos. Indeed, in one scene a taxicab driver admits to breaking
nearly every bone in the body of a police officer who months
ago had beaten his testicles to impotence after catching him
engaging in petty theft. We also view a minor fenderbender
accident so escalates that the owner of the damaged car destroys
treasures in the apartment of the owner of the other car and
nearly rapes the owner's son, who was responsible for the
scratch. A couple are quarreling, and a man with a gun tries
to rape the woman while his associate holds her lover at gunpoint.
Two boxing partners admit sexual indiscretions to each other,
only to punch each other out, and plenty of blood flows. Other
stories are even more grotesque. In Cabaret Balkan, a nightclub,
a master of ceremonies tries to tell the horror like it is
but impresses no one, since words no longer have shock value
compared to the reality that anything terrible can happen
to anyone anytime. The film dashes any hope that international
troops in parts of the former Yugoslavia will return home
anytime soon and, more profoundly, asks but does not answer
at what point civilized behavior breaks down, and endless
feuding and even genocide begin? Analyses of race riots in
the United States, feuding in Northern Ireland, and civil
war in East Timor have tended to focus on clashes between
groups with opposing interests, but Cabaret Balkan
presents one interpersonal encounter after another as a clash
with no rational basis for compromise. The film has many epigrammatic
statements, such as the repeated phrase "I am guilty" in one
of the episodes. However, the most appropriate quote that
comes to mind is that in Yugoslavia today there is "no society;
and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent
death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish,
and short," as philosopher Thomas Hobbes stated in 1651, characterizing
the English civil war (1642-48) as a war of all against all.
However, there is little likelihood today, based on the film's
representations, that any party in Yugoslavia can accept Hobbes's
solution-a strong, central state to which all would accord
respect. The film is also nominated as best exposé. MH
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West
Beirut, written and directed by Ziad Doueiri, tells
the story of the disintegration of Lebanon from April 13,
1975, through the eyes of high school students who bridged
the gap between the Christian and Moslem communities and the
parents of one of the students, a Christian mother and a Moslem
father. When the film begins, Tarek sings the Lebanese national
anthem to the chagrin of his schoolteacher, who has all students
at attention, singing the Marsellaise. It seems that Tarek
(played by the director's brother Rami) and his Moslem friend
Omar (played by Mohamad Chamas) commute from their apartments
in West Beirut, where a Christian girl May (played by Rola
Al Amin) also lives (but survives only by later hiding her
cross pendant as the civil war heats up), to attend a French
school in East Beirut. The teacher goes on to berate Tarek,
tells him to leave class when he deliberately misspells "Monsieur,"
and ethnocentrically tells the class that France gave Lebanon
its civilization. However, nothing seems to bother always-smiling
Tarek, who observes the resurgence of the civil war from the
second floor of the school, after which school is shut down.
Thereafter, Tarek has words with a foul-mouthed motorist,
observes Christians firebombing a demonstration of Moslems,
drops a basin of water onto a crazed woman in the neighborhood
to stop her verbal rage, helps his uncle when he is attacked
by a greedy Moslem so-called protector of his neighborhood,
and even visits a brothel located in the neutral zone between
the two parts of the city. (The film contains occasional scenes
of some of the major violent outbreaks during a civil war
that continued until the early 1990s.) The tagline of the
film is "Growing up is only half the battle." Meanwhile, his
father Riad (played by Joseph Bou Nassar) calms his mother
Hala (played by Carmen Lebbos) , who wants to leave Lebanon,
by telling her that whatever humiliation she is now suffering
would be multiplied manyfold if the family were to become
refugees in Western Europe or the United States. The father
eloquently reminds her that Lebanon has had internal conflicts
many times before but is part of a venerable civilization,
one that advanced the arts and science long before Europe,
and can only be preserved by remaining. MH
POLITICAL
FILM SOCIETY INVITES NOMINATIONS FOR AWARDS
Members of the Political Film Society can nominate feature
films released in 1999 for awards in the following categories:
democracy, exposé, human rights, and peace. Nominations close
on December 31 each year, and voting will take place in the
first two months of the year 2000 for the film that best raises
political consciousness in each of four categories.
NOMINEES
FOR 1999
EXPOSÉ:
Bastards, Cabaret
Balkan, Three Seasons
HUMAN RIGHTS:
The
General's Daughter, Hard,
Three Seasons, Xiu
Xiu
PEACE: Cabaret
Balkan, West Beirut
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