(2007; Sous les Bombes, Arabic) For 33 days in late July and August 2006, Lebanon endured heavy Israeli air strikes in retaliation against Hezbollah, suffering 1189 deaths; on the 34th day the UN brokered a ceasefire. Director Philippe Aractingi employs a few professional actors among actual refugees, aid workers, UN soldiers, journalists, and others to portray the post-war environment of individual human loss.

In Beirut, Zeina Noureddine (Nada Abou Farhat), a Shiite woman from Dubai, has come to search for her six-year-old son Karim, whom she had sent to be with her sister Maha in a village of southern Lebanon, while she and her husband, an architect in Hong Kong, got a divorce. "His son's under bombs," she tells Tony (Georges Khabbaz), a Christian taxi driver, "and he's afraid of losing a client."

No one else is willing to take her south to Saida and Tyre for the day; he charges her $300. Sitting in the back, she is standoffish, treating her hired chauffeur with disdain. On the car radio a female voice reports the news of death and devastation, as bodies are recovered; Zeina keeps in touch with her husband (on his way to Jordan) by cell phone. The roads are cratered by bombs; buildings are piles of rubble; one must be careful of scattered cluster bombs among the debris.

In a school where refugees have come for shelter, Zeina asks if anyone has seen her son and sister; instead she hears their tales of woe and tragedy. Tony charges another $50 to continue on to Merj 'Uyun (where he grew up). Zeina's sister's house has been destroyed; a neighbor says that though Maha is a martyr, a French journalist rescued Karim.

Distraught, accusing Tony of caring only about money, Zeina cares about nothing, not the war or religion, except finding Karim. Going back for more information, Tony learns that the bodies were transported to Tyre; an eleven-year-old boy named Ali tells Tony of having been with Karim and another boy after Karim's aunt had been killed.

Spending the night in a hotel, Tony, while attending to the receptionist's anxiety of being alone, rushes to Zeina's screams from a nightmare of foreboding. Protests against the Israelis and Americans punctuate the funerals. Before departing from Tyre, Zeina ("It's not my war") takes the front passenger's seat as Tony empathizes by relating his own loss.

He has two sons he hasn't seen for a long while, and his brother, who joined the Southern Lebanon Army at 18 and now resides in Israel, would be treated as a pariah if he tried to return; thus, Tony's dream of the two of them joining their uncle in Germany to run a restaurant is futile. He promises Zeina: "I won't leave you till we find him."

When Zeina receives word that Karim is safe but mute in a monastery, she promises to be with him in a few hours; but the roads are treacherous at night in this torn, forlorn part of the country.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Patrick Ivers can be reached via e-mail at .