ON THE PRECIPICE OF WAR & PEACE
February 5, 2017
The unexpected international success of Lebanon…Imprisoned Splendour came largely as a result of the personal storyline of the film. Unlike typical documentaries with their authoritative, detached, report-style structure, what filmmaker, Daizy Gedeon, unwittingly achieved by telling this story through her personal witness, was to immediately, emotionally connect with the audience on a human level.
It’s purpose became much more than telling a parochial, Lebanon-centric story, but interestingly, more a tale about “two cities” or, more factually, two countries and two identities and the struggle associated with those dichotomies.
* Two Countries _ the land of ones birth or heritage and ethnic origins as contrasted with the country where someone has migrated to, live, reside.
* Two Identities _ the culture, norms, traditions, rituals, language, behaviours of the country where a person or their parent’s were originally from versus those that surround them and are reinforced on a daily basis in a person’s adopted homeland.
These themes traverse nations, people, cultures, races and religions. They unify humanity in exposing the struggles and challenges that most people are experiencing as a result of the globalisation of our world and the fact that the last 100 years has seen the largest mass migration in human history.
The over-arching Middle East crisis subplot and associated civil war, assassinations, kidnappings, Syrian occupation, Israeli invasion and Palestinian refugee catastrophe narratives were addressed in a more factual manner. Journalists across the world, from Australia to the USA and Lebanon, picked up on these global concepts and reviewed the film favourably.
