Civil War “حرب أهلية“ (Mohamed Soueid, 2002)

“Lebanese video pioneer, filmmaker, writer and critic Mohamed Soueid (1959) blends narrative with prose, essay with poem, and conversation with speculation. His documentaries are embodiments of his personal life and try to address lost causes. Civil War, the final part of a trilogy of the same name, investigates the mysterious death of Soueid’s cinematographer friend Mohamed Douybaess. In the aftermath of the Lebanese civil war, the film gently skirts the man’s memory through a series of interviews with friends and family members. These fragments clearly address important issues that still prevail in the lives of the Lebanese post-war generation. Through dentists, for example, we learn that the Lebanese have the highest rate of tooth decay in the world -a symptom of collective trauma. Recurring images and sounds of war, destruction, and growling and howling animals are juxtaposed with a different more promising Lebanese reality, however these sounds over the shots of Beirut pedestrians, seem to suggest t