Too far-fetched

Rating: Null/10 (19 July 2011)

This movie tries to emulate a Greek tragedy, which is something expected from a movie based on an Arabic story (for example, Egyptian movies are almost all so dramatic and tragic), but it's a flop. Many will consider it as kind of 'artistic' but it's not really, it's just very poor material. First of all the story is very contrived and the events highly unlikely to happen (probability almost nil). Second, the setting is a deformed and inaccurate account of the Lebanese civil war (they changed names and historic events but the backbone is evidently based on that war and that country). As I've seen in some other reviews, with such a setting so removed from reality, the movie lost its impact, it became a farce. A tragedy or a drama is touching especially because it has elements of reality, and when that reality is removed, the movie resembles a ridiculous science-function-like flick that tries hard to be deep but fails. The acting was generally OK, Mélissa Désormeaux (Jeanne) did a good job, however the actress who played Nawal (the main character) was a disaster; they could have found a better actress, at least someone who could speak proper Arabic.