It is rare to find a Lebanese artwork produced during the war that doesn’t carry its essence, its various facets, its ramifications. War never ceased to be a recurrent theme in all Lebanese artworks. Such works of art reflected the state of war and took a stance on it. However, these artworks would not really be considered an accurate depiction of war. As the war goes on, and more events unfold, such reflections and stances are likely to change. In this sense, a work of art is considered, not a photographic documentation of war, but rather a personal reflection on it.
This also applies to me. I haven't thought much about the kind of work I made during the war. But looking back, I find that any cinematic war-depicting work that I produced was a personal impression rather than an accurate representation of war. I attempted to deconstruct war, to understand its extent and ideas. To me, the war produced a type of cinematic culture that predominated in Lebanon.
A Lebanese image
I believe that the Lebanese cinema is not detached from the Arab Cinema. Even the Egyptian cinema is no longer a stand-alone cinema, as it was in the past. Specifically, in Lebanon, we can no longer form or make new memories without establishing our own image. This started in the beginning of the century and became a widespread reality everywhere. What did our image look like before the war? Does it match that of the post-war or not? Are there any similarities between them that still exist?
What did our image look like before the war? Does it match that of the post-war or not? Are there any similarities between them that still exist?
Before the war, Lebanon would produce a great number of visual artworks (65 feature films and thousands of pictures, including journalism and TV). If these pictures serve as our memory, then why did it disappear with the onset of war? All these images were burned since they could not manifest a word or phrase to what we could see in front of us.
This image is now “forged”, and we deal with it in the same way we have dealt with anything that has been borrowed (i.e. translated cinema, translated highways, etc.). Everything we have here is translated and yet unabsorbed. This is the reason why there is nothing of value left in our cinematic production. When this occurred during and before the war, there was another cinematic movement: the “alternative” cinema. This direction would critique these motion pictures as they do not reflect reality but serve only to defame and slander. The film critics at the time of war were accusing success and fame-driven filmmakers of being failures and selfish. And suddenly war raged on.
The War
Before the war, the Lebanese cinema was a social hub where Lebanese people applauded for superstars and heroes; cocktail parties were thrown where awards and money were given out. The cinema was a “stardom” system or just like the rest of Lebanon a piece of candy that attracted flies, as Nazim Hekmat says “...from everywhere, even from Istanbul.”
With the war, the image was torn apart, and the photographers fled...Replacing them was a younger generation of amateurs unknown in their personas and unknown in their intentions, good or bad. This new generation was indulging in that wave of criticism of cinema before the war, and they were creating an image of “peace”. The image of “peace” portrayed by the new young filmmakers is the image that serves as a means where you can see in and through the future of Lebanon. Their names? Without exception, all the new filmmakers, all the young directors, talented or not. It became a cinema of no social hubs or stardom; it became dangerous and homeless. These artists, regardless of who they were, emerged with a photographic rhetoric of an impression or an expression. And in my opinion, they are all one entity, no matter whoever came up with such a testament. They did not claim anything. Their expressions are just elements added to the bigger picture. Even their images, the obsession with understanding, and knowledge for the sake of the speech became pointless; all that remains for the memory is the amount of self-involvement.
With the war, the image was torn apart, and the photographers fled...Replacing them was a younger generation of amateurs unknown in their personas and unknown in their intentions, good or bad.
The new Arab Cinema explored during one of its stages the Lebanese story. Intertwining the Lebanese narrative with the Palestinian conflict is what drew the Arab Cinema to the Lebanese story. In the past, our image was broadcasted and produced, not based on who we are but rather through the eyes of others. The Lebanese cinema was either Egyptianized or abstracted, a borrowed Lebanese rather than a real Lebanese; we were always framing the picture that did not belong to us. This is a general Arab problem that has greatly exacerbated the existence of a personal identity that has to do with the image. When poetry was the television to the past in which the Arab image was portrayed, the similarity between the Arab and his image was so great that you do not know which one resembles the other: the Arab or his image. In the present era, the image is the largest addressee, the largest discourse to the self. There is no doubt that "how we are" has to do with our image. There is a semi-mutual relationship with the image.
Every individual must produce their true inner image so that the images affixed to them from the outside are no longer distorted and deformed, but rather become a source of enrichment.
In our own image
Our image that is transmitted today is a mere caricature; we see it on our screen and most of the time people, our people, forget that there is another representation of us: one we produce ourselves (you only have to look at the image/representation of the Arab in the western ads for the Clio car on French television to know where the Arab image exists at present). Within this, the meaning of the Arab image in the ads within the Arab world and about the Arab world (the image of the Arab drinking Coca-Cola in the desert, for example) is the only image we see of ourselves, and it is a façade meant to distort us, telling us how we have to be or act. Is this picture responsible? No, what is to blame is not its presence but rather the absence of our true image, a proper representation that makes that caricature image relative. You cannot stop the world from portraying you. The French cannot prevent the world from depicting them. The German cannot prevent the world from sketching the German, and hence the Arab cannot prevent the world from photographing the Arab. Especially when the world is keen on portraying Arabs to support their important and crucial stance on the Arab world. But it is the absence of the true Arab image that allows the production of the distorted caricature-like image. Imagine how the image of the French in the world would be in the absence of their own image? The image of the French then would only be represented as “a lover on the Seine.” And the image of the Italian would only be delineated as a man “devouring spaghetti”. In the presence of a true Italian image the spaghetti becomes a new colour or tool that enriches the Italian cultural image.
Every individual must produce their true inner image so that the images affixed to them from the outside are no longer distorted and deformed, but rather become a source of enrichment. There is a long discussion regarding the images that come to us from the outside and the response to it: there are those who say to stop the production of the external image. We do not produce our own image; we are rather assigned an image from the outside. Therefore, we must put a halt to this external representation. This is, of course, nonsense, not only in terms of the purely technical aspect of the process, but also in terms of the human aspect and human nature. There can be no law that prevents humanity’s inquisitiveness and curiosity. The challenge before us is: How we construct our own image?
New voices, new cinemas
The true image emerged in the age of the new Arab Cinema, from the aura it created. Even the Egyptian cinema in the past only provided a caricature of us (Arabs). The Lebanese in the Egyptian cinema was but a shallow portrayal embodied by Bishara Wakim, whenever the director wanted to insert a Lebanese perspective into the movie. There was no Arab Cinema; there was the “Arab” Egyptian Cinema.
What is new today is that when you see films by Nouri Bouzid, the Tunisian, or Mohamed Malas, the Syrian, we do not just see a Tunisian film or just a Syrian film, as we used to see only an Egyptian film, but rather you see a Tunisian Arab film (In this sense, a Lebanese film cannot be Arab if it is not Lebanese too). Today, Nouri Bouzid’s and Mohamed Malas’ cinemas have become one. It was the new Arab cinema which brought them together. The Arab cinema is no longer just local to its country nor is our image produced by outsiders.
Audio-visual language
The criticism directed at this cinema is that it also produces a caricature or distorted representation, but of a different kind. There is no doubt that Bouzid, Malas and others will produce exaggerations, but in such exaggeration there will be relativism. All speech and every exaggerated action that appears is canceled by a corresponding word or action. It is enough for the new cinema that it uses the gaze as a language through which “melody” is extracted, forming our audio-visual language. Human vision has become audio-visual. In this time in which we are in, audio-visual language is slowly but rapidly replacing written language, and a motion picture is taking over speech. Of course, the audio-visual medium cannot fully replace these other languages, but it will take up space.
If a person today, Arab or non-Arab, sees a depiction of themselves on the screen, then they ask themselves of this image: How? When? Where? Is this image real? Does it have a life of its own? Is it just an image?
The language of the screen, computer, and informatics is gaining steam just as pen and paper used to in the past. The screen is taking up the space that used to be dominated by the paper and pen. On this screen, a vision, and an angle of view: lines are placed on it in this or that form, according to the produced program. You can draw three lines that do only differ in terms of the degree of their thickness, so you know that this is a Roman column, the second a Greek column, and the third an Arab column. There is a certain view of humans through the lines only, through the angles of perspective. (There exists as many languages as viewing angles).
If a person today, Arab or non-Arab, sees a depiction of themselves on the screen, then they ask themselves of this image: How? When? Where? Is this image real? Does it have a life of its own? Is it just an image?
Freedom to create
In a nutshell, the Lebanese war transformed art, expression, and creativity from a voluntary work into a duty. It produced a great deal of dialogues and forms of expression. This was the actual line of defense; this was its duty. “Guilt” is what the artists feel when they see their country falling apart. they feel that it is their duty to react. But it is an emotion that should not be judged quickly and immediately. This is one of the artistic and expressive emotions of the Lebanese that we should not rush, me included, to judge as uncreative.
In a nutshell, the Lebanese war transformed art, expression, and creativity from a voluntary work into a duty.
It is unhealthy for us not to have this much expression, and for sure it is also unhealthy for it not to include a certain percentage of creativity. A critic should not be troubled if he does not see in the many expressive works of art a creative role, but rather he should be pleased, perhaps because he gets to see how at this point in history artistic production is obligatory and resulting from a guilt complex, not from a luxury motive as it was in the past. I am against defamation and slander of unsuccessful artworks within this vast number of productions. Allow people to create as they want and as they can. Those who have created and produced works that were deemed unoriginal are not the ones at fault here. They did not kill anyone, they have not caused harm to anyone, they painted a picture, maybe not creative; directed a movie, maybe boring; or wrote a bad story that could be deemed unoriginal based on certain artistic standards. But we must feel compassionate. It is truly a time of compassion.
Borhane Alaouié
Translation: Mohamed Aboulela, Aya Elmeligy
Originally published as:
Borhane Alaouié. “Aihtaraqat suratuna wafara almusawirun” in Al-Hayah Magazine, 1993.
