Costa Brava - Costa Brava, Lebanon
Costa Brava - Costa Brava, Lebanon
Director: Mounia Akl
Starrings: Nadine Labaki, Yumna Marwan, Saleh Bakri, Nadia Charbel, François Nour, Liliane Chacar Khoury, Geana Restom, Seana Restom
Country: Lebanon, France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Qatar
Year 2021
Author review: Roberto Matteucci
Click Here for Italian Version
“Protests never change anything.”
Numerous tragedies have tormented Lebanon: a bloody civil war, the Israeli invasions, the Syrian occupation, the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, the serious economic crises, the explosion in the port of Beirut. These misfortunes have marked the country, affecting aspects of daily life. One of the most destructive is the mismanagement of waste collection. It has caused tragic emergencies, including popular riots. In recent years, all of Lebanon, Beirut in particular, has been devastated by heaps of tons of rubbish of all kinds on the streets. The managers are, aware or unaware, unable to collect rubbish, creating health and livability problems. The reasons for this negligence are innumerable:
“There is no shortage of woes plaguing the country: widespread poverty, power cuts, fuel and medicine shortages, eye-watering inflation and an entrenched class of political elites who have paralysed government while the rest of the country sinks deeper into crisis.” (1)
Financial impoverishment has created a state deficit, very high inflation rate, forcing the government to cut funds to the rubbish companies. However, it is not just a financial issue. It lacks a political will, the impotence to find solutions, and the endemic corruption. A recycling and composting strategy have not been developed. Incredibly, the recession has reduced the amount of rubbish on the streets:
“He decadde that the only reason garbage has not escalated into a full-blown crisis is that most Lebanese simply cannot afford to produce as much waste as they used to.
“Because of the economic crisis and COVID-19, the production of garbage dropped by 30 to 40 percent,” he said, noting that if current waste production was on par with pre-crisis levels, the country’s two coastal landfills would likely have already reached capacity.” (2)
Landfill management has inexorably failed. In the past, there were even religious clashes at landfills. In Christian neighbourhoods, they did not want to receive the waste of Muslim ones and vice versa. Rubbish was even thrown into the sea. Or worse, it was burned, releasing dioxin fumes. Or, worst of all, other polluting landfills were erected in natural oasis.
The Bakri family lives deep in the Costa Brava's lush valley. One day, they have to face the ugliness of a landfill built outside their door. It is the plot of the film Costa Brava - Costa Brava, Lebanon by director Mounia Akl, presented at the 78th Venice Film Festival.
The beginning has a political incipit: shots of the port, a container ship, the camera moves to the left, an extreme-long shot, in the background a building hit by the explosion. The devastation of the port is the symbol of today's Lebanon. In the meantime, the radio talks about tons of rubbish piled up everywhere, with dangerous fires which have contaminated the air and aquifers.
To escape from corruption and immorality in Beirut, the Bakri family lives alone, without Wi-Fi, in a country house in the Costa Brava valley. All around, only greenery, nature, silence and no other houses. The Bakri family - mother Souraya, father Walid, daughters Tala and Rim, and grandmother Zeina - are happy. They are like hippies, eating the products of their cultivation and breeding.
Rim walks barefoot on the ground. She eats disgusting food, but she "is free". Simultaneously, she counts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 …
Suddenly and noisily, many trucks, along with numerous workers, cross the road next to Bakri land. First, they erect a ridiculous statue of the president. Then, they built an immense garbage landfill in the valley. At the inauguration, in front of journalists, the president lies without shame. He swears: that the new landfill will be a modern recycling facility, without poisonous fumes, without danger. Obviously, in a short time, tons of rubbish will be discharged, stored in disorder and without any processing. They will dump more and more rubbish and to eliminate it, they light fires.
The life of the Bakri is altered. Pollution and the end of peace upset the family. Grudges, resentments, nostalgia begin to destroy harmony.
The director skilfully interweaves the social features with human and family ones. And it is not a case. Mounia Akl points out an intelligent similarity:
“I think my desire to talk about family and how the structure of a family often mirrors the structure of a society came from my childhood. I grew up in a family of women with one man and a family of artists, of architects, of painters, of pianists, and my family were the people I love the most, but at the same time, there was the moment where I realized, “Well, they’re flawed” and that’s when the screenwriter in me was born. It’s like when you have a dream and you realize that every character in your dream is a version of yourself, I realized growing up that every member of my family is a mirror of myself somehow, or a side of me, and I thought that the avenue of the family would be the best way I could talk about my complex relationship to Lebanon, my country.” (3)
The family is the allegory of Lebanon, and Lebanon is greatly exhausted. The Bakri family is "flawed" therefore it looks like its country. Lebanon is fascinating, with so much potential. In the seventies, it had a prosperous economy, both in real estate and cosmopolitan prosperity. Nevertheless, Lebanon comes into conflict with itself, destroying its rich cultural diversity. It's the same with the Bakri, their imperfections blow up from within.
Therefore, Lebanon is another theme. According to the director, Costa Brava is her love letter to her nation:
“My greatest hope is that when people watch the movie, they understand that it is a love letter to Lebanon. This is a film that tackles the question, which most of us might be asking: Fight or flight? Do you fight for a place you feel you have lost or do you save yourself, for your own mental and physical health? My wish is that people get out of the screening feeling emotions that stir questions within them.” (4)
Her "love letter of Lebanon" is clear, affectionate. Her love for her homeland is found on one universal principle: "Fight or flight?" Stay or leave? Therefore, do the Bakri have to stay in their former paradise or move back to the capital? And the answer separates the family.
Another personal argument is the bogus feeling of protection that isolation provides. The Bakri family is a classic example of a hikikomori. In order to run away from the troubles and difficulties of their stay in Beirut, the Bakri have formed a kind of commune based on ecology and rejecting modernities, such as Wi-Fi. Furthermore, they prefer seclusion by minimizing any social contact. For the director, the Bakri fled, and it was not a conscious choice:
“… crushed their dreams and broken their hearts and so they decide to move to the lebanese mountains and create a little paradise and isolate themselves from a world that they don't feel safe anymore …” (5)
Those who flee or move for inner and psychological anxiety reasons, visualize their paradise, but just in their minds. However, men cannot realize heaven because it is not their competence. So, Bakri's paradise is fake, imagined, counterfeit. It is actually hell. And in the hell of the Costa Brava, the family is contrasting.
Walid is the father. More than others, he wants to isolate himself. He has an unknown but certainly problematic past. So, he cannot face changes with a peaceful attitude. Walid is self-destructive. His adamant divides the family. He looks like a martyr. He is a hard worker, but melancholy and nervous. He agrees to follow his wife through the Rim's imagination.
Soraya is the most vital character. She accepted loneliness exclusively out of love. Soraya is a former singer, still famous and recognized by landfill workers. She dances sensually for them. She is the wariest. She is faithful, strong. She is different from her husband. She cannot fight against injustice and corrupt power. She does not want to be a martyr, wants an active existence. She is still young and beautiful, but she has the feeling of being in prison. Soraya still wants to dream.
Rim is a sweet, sensitive child. She grows up in an appropriate environment because she reflects her desire for emancipation. She is imaginative, extravagant. She is the leader of the war against the landfill. She is an anarchist. She throws stones. She screams. She has her own fantastic ritual: she counts. She counts the numbers and waits. When the count ends, she opens her eyes, and, miracle, the evil around her disappears. It is false, it is just her imagination, evil is still there. She is a mischievous, cheerful, shrewd little girl. She is an inflexible opponent of landfill. She is angry with the workers, while her teenage sister, Tala, prefers to seduce them. Rim and her father will be the last to surrender. Rim persuades him to return to Beirut: family is more important than anything.
In the first part, the family is ecstatic, they hide something. They laugh and joke at the table. They are in the courtyard like a joyful family. The radio broadcasts the dramatic news from Beirut.
Then, the rubbish is discharged, and the worries become insurmountable. As specified by the author, the narrative key is Rim. She is homodiegetic in the story. The camera follows her with many close-ups or extreme close-ups of hereyes. Her family feels the call of the city, of progress: grandmother Zeina exchanges a ring for a mobile phone; the workers have installed Wi-Fi in their shack.
In the second section, landfill and pollution get the upper hand. Mounia Akl focuses on the most macabre details of the contamination: close-up of the rubbish with details of the annoying flies and insects. Litter is encroaching on their field and flooding the area. The dominant colour is light blue, the tone of the rubbish bags. A clean light blue, almost a link to the sky. The counterbalance is the colour red. Both the tap water and the pool water are red, which makes them disgusting. Discouragement and resignation are winners: the Bakri family is defeated.
Foreign and internal conflicts have a compelling rhythm. The tension about the landfill situation is as significant as the introspective of the family.