30 November 2005

BEIRUT: It may just be one of the worst films in Lebanese history. Mohammad Salman's 1973 kitsch cult classic, "Guitar El Hob," represents the end of an era in local filmmaking - the death knell of Egyptian-style musical love stories. Screened Monday night as part of the program of Lebanese movies showing at the European Film Festival in Beirut, not for its brilliance as a film but to represent one element of filmmaking in the country between 1973 and 1983, "Guitar El Hob" is a disaster on all fronts. Featuring numerous Beirut lotharios in speedos pushing each other into swimming pools, a gorgeous bikini-clad Georgina Rizk (Lebanon's Miss World), TeleLiban comic actor Assaad, action star Chawki Matta and sitcom star Ibrahim Maraachi as well as the arguably attractive Sabah who takes on singing duties, the acting is laughable and the plot cheesy as grilled halloumi.

Salwa (Sabah) has come to Lebanon to seek her long lost sister of whom all she has left is a single picture. Najwa (Rizk) has just won Miss Universe and is stuck in the Lebanese jet-set scene plagued by sycophants and suitors. Assaad is Najwa's driver, who befriends Salwa when she hides in his car to escape her rent-seeking landlord. A love triangle ensues between Salwa and Najwa and an honest guitar player. Plots and manipulations and scenes in legendary Beirut nightclub Blow Up occur before the sisters eventually find each other and get their man. The final shot is frozen as Najwa and Salwa reunite on a Beirut beach running into the arms of our handsome guitarist.

All the actors speak in Egyptian accents reflecting the strong influence of the Cairo scene on Lebanese directors and Salman in particular (this was his 29th film), and there is even some soft porn as chauffeur Assaad gets it on with his wife (Najwa's cook) who screams, breasts everywhere, as she performs military maneuvers on her lucky man.

Salman's film is a minor diversion if anything but it does serve as one of the final celluloid indications of the carefree days of pre-war Lebanon when men looked like Starsky and Hutch and women like Charlie's Angels. The films to come would deal with more serious subjects - primarily life during wartime.

Tonight the Festival screens one of those - Beirut intellectual Borhan Alaouie's 1981 film "Beirut Al Likaa" about the Muslim Haidar desperately seeking his Christian friend Zeina in a divided Beirut. 

Sobhi Seifeddine's 1984 work "Al Jiha Al Khamisa" ("The Fifth Direction") follows on Sunday, detailing the birth of the National Resistance in the South and filmed under occupation.

While not particularly cinematic "Al Jiha Al Khamisa" at least provides a rare insight into Lebanese cinema of the time - just don't expect any singing.

For screening times call Empire Sofil on +961 1 321806