Lebanese film-maker Ziad Doueiri’s fourth feature film The
Insult (2017) showcases how violent history and a community rife with division
(often along religious aspects) can transform a petty feud into a full-blown
crisis. It all starts with a leaky, illegal drainpipe spitting water right into
the street. The drainpipe and the house it rests upon belongs to Tony Hanna (Adel Karam), a proud Beirut Christian and a car
mechanic running his own auto repair shop. From the little we see about Tony,
we can adjudicate him as a stubborn man with an unfocused fury who is very
protective of his beautiful and sensitive, pregnant wife Shirine (Rita Hayek). The first time we see
Tony he is attending a political rally of right-wing Christian Party. He watches
(in TV) fire-breathing declamations of a right-wing leader, who tries to kindle
the embers of nationalism by keeping frustrated natives angry about the
Palestinian refugees and their burgeoning settlements. All these little pieces
of information are gracefully thrown out to make us outsiders comprehend the upcoming conflict. The head of local building crew is Yasser Salameh (Kamel El Basha), a Palestinian foreman whose identity Tony perfectly recognizes. Yasser
notices the protruding drainpipe and asks to repair it but Tony refuses. Driven by legal
order, Yasser fixes the pipe which Tony instantly destroys. Tony’s vainglorious
attempt to pick up an altercation succeeds as Yasser calls him a ‘prick’.
The Insult might only be Ziad Doueiri’s second Lebanese
film, but he has already faced myriad of controversies. His third feature ‘The
Attack’ (2012) set in Tel Aviv drew huge condemnation from Arab circuits,
starting with his decision to cast an Israeli actress in the role of a
Palestinian suicide bomber. The film was also banned in Lebanon. After
achieving critical acclaim abroad for his new film The Insult (later nominated
for an Oscar; Kamal El Basha won an acting award at Venice Film Festival),
Doueiri returned to Beirut, only to be detained at the airport, summoned before
a military court, and accused of treason for shooting his previous film in
Israel (which Lebanon considers as enemy state). His new film also received
severe criticism in Lebanon, accusing him of normalizing the state’s enemy
(more particularly for his attempt to portray the Palestinian complicity in the
Lebanese Civil War). Despite the call to boycott The Insult, the film was
successfully released and enjoyed a good domestic response.
The positive thing about Ziad Doueiri’s new film is his
ability to highlight the commonality of the central narrative crisis. The rift
between Tony Hanna and Yasser Salameh could be set in any other place in the
world where nationalist sentiments has a strong foothold and one group of
people is set against the other. This broad nature of the social commentary is
the initial hook of The Insult, which gradually pulls the viewer to recognize
the crisis and bloody history pertaining to Lebanon, a nation that’s housing
170,000 to 500,000 Palestinians and at least 2 million Syrians. Adding more
historical dimension to the explosive crisis in Lebanon is the civil war
(1975-1990), which is one of the many violent outgrowths after the post-World
War II formation of Israel. All such weighty historical and cultural forces are
stoked over the trivial, if not ludicrous, conflict between Tony and Yasser.
Yasser despite being a talented engineer and living in
Beirut for years remains underemployed because he is classed as a refugee. Like
Tony, Yasser too resents what the other side stands for or represent. They both
see themselves being in the wrong. When Tony sternly demands an apology, Yasser
is coaxed by his boss to turn the page. But in the ensuing exchange of words,
Tony says “I wish that Ariel Sharon had wiped you all out.” Yasser breaks two
of Toni’s ribs in response. The incident leads to a court-case. The wives of
both men (Rita Hayek and Christine Choueiri) are baffled by their husband’s
stand, vainly trying to breathing in some rational thought. The first courtroom scene is
fascinating as both the protagonists try the case without employing layers.
The subsequent appeal hearing, however, takes more from the American legal drama
with Tony and Yasser’s respective attorneys—Wajdi (Camille Salameh) and Nadine (Diamand Bou Abboud) – expertly dissect the banal
details of the case, and later debate on the complex history of Lebanon, and the
omnipresent communal trauma.
Ziad Doueiri has worked in films in both America (was first
camera assistant to Tarantino) and Paris, which shows in the way he designed
the courtroom showdowns and the way he incorporated character temperaments
through little details. I found the narrative structure compelling. Doueiri and
his co-writer/ex-wife Joelle Touma start by distilling the political and
cultural forces into the personal conflict and later as the situation escalate
to the court, they ably balance both the micro and macro perspective. The
strength of the film lies in constantly pushing the protagonists to understand
the implications of their actions. They are characterized as fixers (one fixes
the cars; other the buildings) with short-temper and traumatic past. Doueiri
scatters their common viewpoints on certain things as a sort of in-joke (they
both call out the Judge as a ‘biased’ man and share similar views about Chinese vs German products). But still the final disappointing stretch becomes a bit
thick with instructive historical entries and melodramatic speeches.
While director Doueiri doesn’t offer a simple feel-good
solution to the conflict, his humanist conclusion doesn’t contain the sharp
focus of the previous scenes. I would have found it hard to eventually
empathize with Tony, if not for the final twist in the narrative. By trying to
shed light on an unknown bloody chapter in Lebanese history, Doueiri kind of
propagates false equivalency between the two characters. The 1975 Damour massacre might be very real and immensely traumatic, and
perfectly serves for the loud questioning of ‘why should there be a
monopoly on suffering?’. And that works fine for a morality play, but from the character
perspective, Tony Hanna with his impervious, hotheaded nature and dogmatic
beliefs wouldn’t be so sympathetic, if not for the final revelation. In an
effort to make a humanistic and nuanced statement, Ziad Doueiri gets
dangerously closer to turning the movie into a liberal pap. The other (comparatively
minor) flaw is the half-hearted attempt to create conflict between the two
lawyers, who are revealed as father and daughter with opposite views on
Lebanese politics. The twist once again only functions to surprise the viewers
and serves no other purpose. Of course, The Insult is brilliantly acted, staged
with vigor and sincerity. It’s an undeniably exhilarating political drama,
layered with complex dramatic tension. Yet, the final output makes us yearn for
less didacticism and sharper characterizations, similar to the astoundingly
subtle social dramas of Asghar Farhadi. But from ‘West Beirut’ (1998) to ‘The
Attack’ (2012) to ‘The Insult’ (2017), Ziad Doueiri is consistently maturing as
a film-maker and I hope his next feature would be thoroughly nuanced.
Trailer
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