Gunfire and song mix with a poetic voice-over written by the Lebanese writer and painter Etel Adnan (who also wrote a text for Letter from Beirut) in what would become the first entry in Saab’s “Beirut Trilogy”, which searches for traces of life amid the bombed-out buildings and errant fires of a ghost city, where even the children have become soldiers, looters, and scavengers.
“This film marks a turning point. It’s a wandering drift through a destroyed Beirut. To express my sensitivity to a country that I love and that has been destroyed, I asked the Lebanese poet Etel Adnan to write the commentary. Our two sensibilities found one another. This commentary was surprising to many because it doesn’t respect the rules of reportage. It’s a poem expressing personal impressions that could be those of all Lebanese.”
Arabic / French spoken, English subtitles
