Under the Bombs

I biked myself down to the Alamo South to take advantage of my Austin Film Society membership today. The movie was free for AFS members. I'm telling you, if you like film, there's just no better deal in town. Look it up and get yourself a membership.

This movie is a combination of documentary footage and narrative scenes, all shot during the 2006 war with Israel. Most of the movie making was done during a ceasefire, at great risk to the cast and crew. Their set is the recently bombed out countryside of Lebanon. It's hard to know how much of what goes on in the background of scenes is staged and how much is happenstance. It made me think of the Rossellini film Germania, Anno Zero, shot on the devestated streets of post war Germany. It's got a very Neorealist feel and ending.

In the trailer below they show the first few moments of the film, which are breathtaking. Lebanon is a very pretty country, a lot of hills and valleys. The first shot sits on a pictorial view of a hillside peppered with residential looking buildings. It's like a landscape painting until little explosions start happening all across your view and you realize it's war footage.



I enjoyed this film. There were moments when the woman's search for her son (that's the main storyline) gets a little tedious, but never for too long. It gets broken up by the antics of her improbable partner, a shady taxi driver from the south. The movie is actually lightly informative about Lebanon which was enjoyable. Some of the characters we are introduced to are Christians and you get a feel for the social dynamics at play in the country among its different religious groups. Seek it out if you can & thanks for reading.