A thin,
undersized boy of -- possibly -- twelve does chores for his family. Bargaining
with street merchants, stretching a little money, knowing his way around. The street is a densely
crowded shantytown of ad-hoc markets. A "slum." We have already been shown an airplane
view of this district. It looks like a refugee camp for people fleeing a war
zone. Those black circles on all the flat roots, turn out, when we get closer
to them to be automobile tires laid on top of tarpaulins to keep the rain out, and perhaps
the sun off, the flat roofs.
The boy
drags his purchases into a deteriorating building and up a narrow stairway. His
second floor apartment is flooded. His mother, in a state of near derangement,
anger and despair, is trying to soak up water while swearing at the landlord. This happens whenever he takes a shower, she complains, but he won't fixing the leaky pipes. The family can't demand anything of him him, however, since they're living on his sufferance, can't
pay rent and are afraid he'll throw them out.
The boy's family
has nothing. No money, power, well-connected friends, education, or viable
connections to a civil society. Their children don't have birth certificates. Nobody has a job.
But they do
have six or seven children (the parents don't seem sure). The father, who's only seen sitting on the couch,
protests that he has no idea how any of this has happened to him.
Zain, the streetwise 12 year-old, is the eldest. When he notices that his sister
closest in age has spotted a sheet (the children don't have a bed; they sleep
on a sheet on the floor) with blood, he helps her hide the evidence of
menstruation from her parents. Who, he warns her, will 'sell' her to a
neighborhood loser who lusts for her once they find out she's now 'a woman,' even though she's only
eleven.
As it turns
out, Zain, who loves his sister more than anyone in his world, has good reason
for his fears.
This is not
the Middle Ages. This film is not set in one of the world's poorest, most
backward countries.
This is, we
are told, Lebanon, and the slum or shantytown whose rooftops we have glimpsed
from above is in Beirut.
Oddly, we
have been to this city seven times and never glimpsed anything remotely
resembling the images we are seeing on the screen.
How well
hidden are the lives of the poor.
The most important thing I can tell you about this movies is that you must see it.
What else I can tell you without spoiling too much, and
because you will find this information prominently in any newspaper or online
review, is the movie centers on Zain's subsequent struggle to maintain a caring, wholly committed custody of one-year-old baby
who has been separated from his mother -- for reasons I won't go into here.
But know
that the baby is Ethiopian.
Yes, although the version of Lebanon we are seeing
here does not seem terribly inviting, people come from other countries, such as
Ethiopia, to seek work in this country of crowded avenues, luxury hotels, lovely beaches, and exquisite restaurants (none of which are featured in this film). They come from the Philippines and South Asia
as well. And sometimes, to use the smear-word American politics has bequeathed
to the world, they are "illegals."
Also, not included in the tally above, Lebanon is also the host country for millions of Palestinian (since the late 1940s) and Syrian (from the start of the civil war) refugees.
Know also that both the
boy who plays Zain, and the toddler who is far too infantile to know that he is
'performing' are tremendous screen presences.
And as
tough their circumstances become, neither gives into them -- neither stops doing the
best he can.
And so
while we root for Zain to survive, get by, figure things out, and find some
sort of opportunity for a decent life -- not to mention 'justice' for what he
and other children have suffered, we are also
getting an unforgettable tour of life on the street in refugee-like conditions,
revealed by a brilliant guide in a brilliant and positively riveting film.
A few other considerations. As I
learned from reading an interview, the part of Zain is played by 12 year-old also named Zain, who was
in fact a Syrian refugee living Lebanon (as millions do), though his film character is
Lebanese.
It seems clear to me that director Nadine Labaki has clearly avoided any grounds for putting the blame for the
poverty her film portrays on the presence of Syrian refugees. She also portrays
Zain's family without any religious affiliation -- you can't blame his parents'
hopeless, backward worldviews on either Islam or Christianity, both large
presences in Lebanon, and Syria, and of course throughout the Middle East.
It's also worth noting that many
of the film's Lebanese characters behave in kind and responsible ways. The Ethiopian mother is
more sinned against than sinning. And we are treated, near the end, to scenes of jails filled with the 'undocumented' nationals from many other countries.
The film left me pondering some wider questions.
What does
it take for people born in impoverished circumstances (in poor countries, of course, but also in more prosperous ones such as the US) to survive? Does their life have to
be so hard?
Should we still be in the business of discouraging them from moving about the world in hopes of a better chance at life.
And, possibly, deeper ones:
What's
wrong with the human race? Or with human societies? Or people, period?
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