West Beirut

When the civil war begins in 1975, the first news for Tarek, a Beirut schoolboy, is good: schools are closing. He roams the city with his friend Omar and their neighbour May, shooting film on a super eight camera. Then the city splits into east and west and crossing becomes impossible. Ziad Doueiri wrote and directed his first film. He was a child in Beirut during the war years, and the story rests largely on what he remembers. Doueiri came into cinema as a camera assistant and worked on Quentin Tarantino's early films; the restless camera here comes from that school. Its achievement is telling the war from an adolescent's view rather than a child's: curiosity, boredom and excitement arrive before fear. Death only becomes visible slowly. The crossings of the dividing line, and the brothel functioning as the city's only neutral ground, are its most discussed passages. It was among the first Lebanese films to draw international attention after the war. Who it is for: viewers who like war told from inside daily life. Who it is not for: anyone wanting political analysis; the film never asks who was right.