Tricoting of crossed destinies between the line between southern Lebanon and Haifa in Israel, Tel Aviv – Beirut takes us into the dread of an endless war between 1984 and today.
Women's War
The point of view on the war generally lies in the eye of the one sent to the front. Tel Aviv – Beirut of the director Michale Boganim Turns back this poncif by focusing its story on two family nuclei, on both sides of the demarcation line between the two countries. On the Israel side, Myriam and Yossi, a couple whose birth of the first child is troubled by the husband's military daily. On the Lebanese side, Fouad and Nour, whose reputation is undermined because Fouad is a Tsadal: he works with the Israeli army to fight Hezbollah. Several dramas will forever make the fate of these two families...
Director of documentaries and fictions, Michale Boganim offer in Tel Aviv – Beirut a new look at the ever-changing conflict and a new way to stage the war, mostly out of the field and through a feminine look. This focus on the little story upset by the great is probably what Tel Aviv – Beirut has more interesting to tell us, recalling, all proportions kept, what the film The Harkis offered us at the cinema a few months ago.
Like Aviv's messing up?
Unfortunately, it must be noted that the staging struggles to keep up with his words. Neither erased (we talked about Mediterranean fever A staging always left in the background of his dialogues so as not to parasitize nature), or really inspired, she ends up losing her subject in her constant and tiring panicking and a light sometimes too fake. Similarly, some scenes suffer from anarchic editing and too frequent cuts that never really allow them time to take life.
Yet Boganim does not lack ideas. A visual work has been done so that over the years (the feature film takes place in 1984, 2000 and 2006) one can find the characters and follow them in their evolution. In the same way, a discrete color code identifies which side of the border is the camera. Subtle visual indications that allow the spectator, parachuted in a narrative where the director takes the side of giving no theoretical basis (for example on relations between Lebanon and Israel), gradually reconstruct the great story from that of her characters.
Positive points
Characters more or less incarnate – a part of the casting struggles to convince – alternating, and it is one of the good ideas of the film, between Arabic, Hebrew and French. Another strong point? Music! Exit violins, piano and emphasis of the pathos at Stabilo Boss musical, Avishai Cohen and the director takes the side of unexpected music, sometimes destabilizing but instilling a soul in the image of the scene. A goldsmith's work and an exciting soundtrack, to listen even outside the feature.
In short, Tel Aviv – Beirut is a blond work. Passionate about his words, but sometimes badly served by his staging and his length too stretched. But a feature film that has the great merit of narrating a story that we know only too little, and whose cinema is little (or not?) taken: that of these Lebanese soldiers, to existence shammed by an impassable border.
Data sheet
DVD Zone B (France)
Publisher: Blaq Out
Duration: 116 min
Release date: 06 June 2023
Video format : 576p/25 - 2.39
Soundtrack : Hebrew and Arab Dolby Digital 5.1 (and 2.0)
Subtitles French
Always nice to read you. Too bad about this one, on paper it was interesting!
Thank you. 😉 Yes really nice idea of the movie... After that it had the merit of making me want to discover "The Outraged Earth" of the same director who looks pretty good!