(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Danielle Arbid debuted with the short film Raddem the same year that Ziad Doueiri put Lebanon on the map with the movie West Beirut i 1998. Like other Lebanese artists who grew up during the civil war of the 70 and 80 centuries, several of Arbid's films are about the country's lack of settlement with the past, about the war between Muslims and Christians and about the situation of the Palestinians. In her short films, she experiments with various artistic and thematic expressions, in her documentary films she explores the social and political consequences of the Lebanese civil war. In her feature films, on the other hand, she draws on more personal experiences related to family and belonging, and examines the connection between Lebanon and France more indirectly.
Banned in Beirut. Already at the age of 12, Arbid knew she wanted to leave Beirut – away from the war and family – and become a journalist. As a 17-year-old, 30 years ago, she came to Paris to study. With subjects such as literature and journalism and after work as a Middle East commentator for La Libération, the road to film was not long. This happened, like many other things in Arbid's life, not without resistance. For there is something that characterizes the life and movies of the Lebanese, it is precisely struggle and rebellion. From a young age, Arbid turned his back on his Christian origins and took the side of the Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This makes her a controversial filmmaker even today. According to her, the desire to fight does not come from her own war experiences, but from the internal struggles of the growing up family: "It is from my parents, my mother and father, I have learned to say no, to protest," she says.
Already at school, Arbid experienced being banned – banned by the nuns for "immoral behavior": "I took the Palestinians," says the director, who in France is referred to as Arabic, and in Lebanon as French. Precisely this ambiguity and ambivalent affiliation – the experience of being raised under a French patronage – characterize several of her films. Over time, she has realized that this is a strength: "I understand now that one country, one nationality, cannot be replaced by another," she says. This is how Arbid clearly expresses not being a representative of the Lebanese people: "I dislike them at least as much as they dislike me." Above all, it is the censorship of her films that makes her upset.
"I dislike the Lebanese people at least as much as they dislike me."
Then the feature film Beirut Hotel was banned by the Lebanese authorities in 2011, Arbid took the case to court, but not surprisingly she lost. It was probably not the film's erotic scenes that caused the ban, but its associations with the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. Authorities believed the film, which was about a divorced Lebanese singer's relationship with a French businessman – a possible spy – could jeopardize the country's security danger.
These events are one reason why Arbid in his latest feature film Parisienne (2015) turns away from Lebanese reality and targets the French, without directly affecting Lebanon's relationship with France,
Sexuality. Parisienne is Arbid's international breakthrough, and marks a turning point in her artistry. It is the only one of Arbid's films that has been shown in Norwegian cinema – during Arab Film Days earlier this year. In the film you meet Lina On the Battlefield (2004), as she, like Arbid herself, travels from Beirut to Paris and a student life there. In the French capital, she searches for what she did not find in Lebanon: freedom. With the survival instinct as the sole travel companion, she sets off through a class-divided Paris to explore the boundaries of love and sexuality. As Lina struggles through all the difficulties her newfound freedom brings, she dreams of embracing and being embraced by the world. In one of the film's central scenes, Lina's art history teacher says: "Our fascination for the ugly has remained taboo until now. Yet the ugly is not horror, which is accidental. Nor terror. The ugly is ontological. In other words, part of the essence of men, of his finiteness. " When the art history teacher instructs students to make a list of things they find ugly, Lina writes: "Everything until now has been ugly."
Arbid is moving away from his past at this moment and faces the future. With that said, there is no classic migration story she comes with. As she turns to France and the future and leaves Lebanon and the bad memories behind her, she immediately begins to question the freedom, equality and fraternity that will be the core French values. She does this by linking Lina's longing for sexuality, which created reactions even in France. Again, the conversation leads to censorship: “I don't cut my movies to fit. I am nobody pleaser, ”She comments quickly.
A Battle Song (2016), a documentary on Danielle Arbid directed by Yannick Casanova, appeared at the Paris Short Film Festival in July. So did Arbid's own This Smell of Sex from 2008. The film, which is a kind of survey about sexuality, is by no means Arbid's most "sexy" film. A Lost Man (2007), on the other hand, "best represents my inner life, the relationship between the past and the present," she explains. In the film, which is based on the life and work of the photographer Antoine d'Agata, we follow a French photographer in search of extraordinary experiences. The only way the protagonist manages to relate to reality is by photographing prostitutes while selling sex. On one of his travels, he meets a man with memory loss. By documenting the man's sexual encounters, he brings to life both his own and the man's memories.
For Arbid, sexuality is an important driving force in work as well as in life. It represents a settlement with the past and breaks with taboos, both in Arabic and in French culture. Documenting the sexual act is for Arbid a kind of rebellion against given values and understandings of reality.
Passion. When asked what the future will bring, Arbid says she wants to do one remake of Fassbinder's film Anxiety eats the soul from 1974, about a middle-aged German woman's relationship with a young Moroccan immigrant. Otherwise, she is planning a filmization of Annie Ernaux's novel A passion (Passion Simple, 1993), about a woman's relationship with a married man.
By showing the shock and anxiety the sexual act elicits, Arbid uses the sexual to lift the moral condemnation.
Like Ernaux, Arbid has been accused by French feminists of not taking responsibility for the oppression of female sexuality. "Although I often choose a female look in my films, I'm not a feminist, not in the traditional sense of the word." There is an artistic community between Ernaux and Arbid. Because, like Ernaux, who does not understand why people turn to guidebooks for years and explanations of a work of art they see – unrelated to their own lives – Arbid uses art exclusively in connection with passion. By showing the shock and anxiety the sexual act can elicit, Arbid uses the sexual to dispel moral condemnation.
For Arbid, Ernaux's novel is not just about the pain and pleasure of giving in to passion and its fantasies, but also about giving in to the work: "The filmization of the book will be a declaration of love for my own work up to now," she says.
It is unknown whether Arbid will return to the Lebanese reality in the future, but that she will continue to break taboos and revolt – there are many indications.
