This video, titled Shit Lebanese Racists Say, couldn’t have come at a better time. When the country is slowly forgetting about Alem Dechassa, the Ethiopian Maid that committed suicide after being publicly abused, the Anti-Racism Movement has come up with this video that is highly poignant to say the least.
Without further ado, here it is:
The Hunger Games is probably one of the most anticipated movies of the year. And the movie delivers (read my review). With such standards, the need for a decent soundtrack becomes evident. The album’s producer T-Bone Burnett manages to do what he does best. The award-winning producer has come up with a very coherent album with a specific vibe and feel that doesn’t stray away from the movie’s theme.
While listening to The Hunger Games‘ soundtrack, titled: The Hunger Games (Songs from District 12 and Beyond), you cannot but feel that this is an album that would have stood alone as a credible work without an accompanying movie. The fact that there’s a movie to it is just the cherry on top. It’s a folky, country album. It is mellow, somewhat subdued in parts and also defiant in others. The sound it holds varies between realism and shrieking for liberty. It switches between being soothing and calling for arms.
It is a treat to listen to.
Opening with an eerie battle for strength by Arcade Fire, in a song titled “Abraham’s Daughter,” the bar is set very high for the album. Driven by incessant military beat, the band sings in Biblical terms about the power of sacrifice. It is the song that plays as the movie’s credits start rolling.
The album also features two songs by country superstar Taylor Swift, both of which are not the typical country pop sound she has become known for. Instead, Taylor has decided to let her sound grow on an album that is not hers. On “Safe & Sound” (full review of the song), she’s soothing, telling the character to whom she’s singing to “close your eyes, you’ll be alright. No one can hurt you now. Come morning light, you and I’ll be safe and sound.” On the other offering for Taylor in the album, the song titled “Eyes Open” (full review of the song), she is the exact opposite. “Keep you eyes open,” she incessantly repeats as if her life depended on it.
Grammy-winning folk band The Civil Wars are also present on the album in two songs. The first is a feature on the aforementioned Safe & Sound, the second is one entirely their own called “Kingdom Come”. For a band known for their harmonies, they work their best here. Their harmonies get better as the song progresses. “Run, run, run away. Buy yourself another day. A cold wind’s whispering secrets in your ear. So low only you can hear…. It’ll all be over soon. I’ll be waiting here for you.”
Hip-hop artist Kid Cudi is featured on a song titled “The Ruler and the Killer.” Maroon 5 also contribute a haunting submission titled “Come Away To The Water,” a song that is very different from many of their personal material with lyrics that are dark and haunting. “Come away little lamb, come away to the slaughter. To the ones appointed to see this through. We are coming for you.”
New country band, The Pistol Annies with their frontwoman Miranda Lambert are present on “Run Daddy Run,” a folky song that’s very in the vein of what other country artists had given the soundtrack. It is reminiscent of the movie’s mood as well. “Daddy, can you hear the devil drawing near?” they sing with conviction.
Glen Hansard, known for his more subdued songs such as “Falling Slowly”, is outside of the character he has convinced people of. On the rocking song “Take the Heartland,” he shouts and pleads. “I’m not gonna put my head down. I’ll face it like a Fidel Castro, like a Che Guevara or a Fidel Castro. I’m gonna grab my bow and my life’s one last wish. And I’m gonna take the life and a knife. And I’m gonna shape my way and not fall.”
Young singer Birdy, known for her cover of Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love,” concludes the album with the chilling “Just a Game.” “There comes you to keep me safe from harm. There comes you to take me in your arms. Is it just a game? I don’t know. Is it just a game? I don’t know” she pleads.
The album also features many other artists such as The Decemberists, The Secret Sisters, Neko Case, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, Punch Brothers, Jayme Dee and The Low Anthem. All of the 16 songs that make up the album help create a great companion for The Hunger Games.
After watching the movie, you cannot but be certain that The Hunger Games‘ soundtrack fits the movie perfectly. While listening to the songs, you can close your eyes and imagine Katniss struggling for her life, arming her bow and shooting at her enemies. And in a way, the soundtrack does that. It shoots at musical conformity by giving you a composite sound different from most of the music you hear nowadays. And that is always certainly welcomed.
9/10
The tracklist:
1. Arcade Fire, “Abraham’s Daughter”
2. The Secret Sisters, “Tomorrow Will Be Kinder”
3. Neko Case, “Nothing To Remember”
4. Taylor Swift, “Safe & Sound ft. The Civil Wars”
5. Kid Cudi, “The Ruler and The Killer”
6. Punch Brothers, “Dark Days”
7. The Decemberists, “One Engine”
8. The Carolina Chocolate Drops, “Daughter’s Lament”
9. The Civil Wars, “Kingdom Come”
10. Glen Hansard, “Take The Heartland”
11. Maroon 5 ft. Rozzi Crane, “Come Away To The Water”
12. Miranda Lambert, “Run Daddy Run feat. Pistol Annies”
13. Jayme Dee, “Rules”
14. Taylor Swift, “Eyes Open”
15. The Low Anthem, “Lover Is Childlike”
16. Birdy, “Just A Game”
For legions of people, The Hunger Games is the most anticipated movie release of the year. And for a movie released so early in 2012, that’s saying something. Based on the book of the same title (read my review here), The Hunger Games stars Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, a sixteen year old girl living in a post-apocalyptic America where hunger and oppression ruled, where hunting for rodents was the way to keep your family alive and where every day represents a fight for your life.
This post-apocalyptic America is the country of Panem, governed by the Capitol which oversees twelve districts, making sure they are stripped down to the bare necessities. Those twelve districts had been thirteen that rebelled against the Capitol’s oppression. They lost the war and are still paying the price, the heaviest of which is the annual Hunger Games which require each district to send a young man and woman, for a total of 24, to battle each other to the death. There can only be one victor. “May the odds be ever in your favor” is the sentence the tributes keep hearing as if odds will help them on the brink of death.
When her sister is chosen, Katniss volunteers in her place and is taken along with the male tribute of District 12, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), to the Capitol where they are groomed like lambs for slaughter in an attempt to make an impression which can make it or break it for them once the games fall upon them. And fall they do, with devastating consequences.
To see the Katniss Everdeen of your imagination after reading The Hunger Games books be incarnated so perfectly on screen by Jennifer Lawrence is a joy to the eye. Lawrence struts through every scene as if she was Katniss and Katniss was her. She exuberates confidence, sentimentality, fragility, innocence, worry, love and pain. Widely known for her Oscar-nominated role in Winter’s Bone, Lawrence is still in the same vein in The Hunger Games. This time, however, she manages to polish the sides of her performance, nitpicking until she truly becomes flawless. In Katniss, Lawrence gives you a heroine you want to root for with all your heart. It doesn’t even feel forced, it’s simply natural to feel invested in the primal force that Lawrence conveys to Katniss. And it is then that you realize the brilliance of Lawrence’s Katniss. She has managed to make her character one that is driven by principle.
Director Gary Ross manages to not let the movie’s extended run at 140 minutes affect it negatively. The Hunger Games doesn’t let down. It keeps picking up, bring in gut-wrenching revelations and action sequences one after the other. Ross uses the action of the movie to serve the characters, not drown them. He keeps the suspense going throughout. His camerawork is also highly interesting, with lots of focus on his characters’ faces, giving them a more humane appearance and seeing the struggles in them easily. Co-writing the movie’s script with the book’s author, Suzanne Collins, he stays true to the book’s essence. Even though some sequences have been shortened and some have been omitted, the feeling of the book remains there, present for you throughout to sink your eyes into.
At the center of the deathly games is a growing love triangle between Katniss, Peeta and Gale (Liam Hemsworth), a friend of Katniss from District 12 who’s lucky enough not to have been chosen as tribute. Liam Hemsworth quickly establishes himself as a forceful character, with the limited screentime he gets. Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) is highly relatable as the man secretly crushing over Katniss whose only memory of him is him helping her in a time of need. But the greatest triumph in this regard for The Hunger Games is focusing less on the love triangle than other movies targeting the same audience, making you really not care about either Team Peeta or Team Gale. At the end of the day, the only team you want to be on is the movie.
Other actors that appear in the movie are Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman, a TV host that charmingly narrates the games as they unfold. Elizabeth Banks stars as Effie Trinket, a Capitol spokesperson who’s as obnoxious as she is caring. Donald Sutherland appears as the horrible President Snow, governing his country with a hand of steel. Woody Harrelson is the always drunk Haymitch who has to sober up in order to tip the balance in his tributes’ favor.
We might be the only country in the world where such a request can spark a controversy. Popular Lebanese blogger Rita Kamel wrote about the issue yesterday. Muslim students had requested a prayer room in the Antonine University, an institution conformant to the Maronite order. After their request was refused, the students saw it fit to pray in the university’s courtyard as protest.
There’s nothing wrong with students praying. But provoking their university’s administration in such a way is totally unacceptable. Going to the Antonine university, those students were aware of its regulations and its rules. If that university had had a zero-tolerance policy as some people were inferring, it wouldn’t have accepted students from outside the sects it “prefers” to begin with.
When it comes to such an issue, we tend to tred sectarian lines lightly. Any wrong sentence and all hell would break loose. But let me ask one simple question. If I, a Christian, had decided to go to Al Nour University in Tripoli (I’m assuming one exists), fully knowing that it is a Muslim university with such leanings, is it my right to ask for a chapel? In simple terms – absolutely not.
A university is supposed to be an educational institution where you go for classes and for a new life experience. It shouldn’t be a place for anyone to flaunt their religious beliefs, which are surely respected by the Antonine University simply because it allowed people from all faiths to enroll without imposing on them religious courses.
The fact remains, however, that many Muslim students have found ways to pray on many campuses without making a big deal out of things. For instance, the Lebanese Southern Club at the American University of Beirut uses the club room for praying at specific hours. It doesn’t interfere with other students nor does it make a big deal out of it.
At the end of the day, when a student applies to any university with religious leanings in Lebanon, they are more than aware of what they’re going into. If a Christian student is bugged by an Islamic-leaning university, he/she can always transfer. The same applies to Muslim students. And in case students don’t feel like attending any religious institutions, there are always a multitude of secular universities for them to go to. It’s just the way things are. No, it doesn’t reflect on our sectarian system in Lebanon negatively because universities with religious leanings are present all around the world and have administrations which would have behaved in the same way in such circumstances.
The only difference is that we, as Lebanese, tend to see any negativity surrounding our religion as a personal threat. We tend to forget that our relationship with God is not one which needs to be shown for any passerby. We tend to forget that praying is a personal matter that shouldn’t be made into national headlines. The students have a right to ask for a prayer room. The administration has the right to say no. There should be no hard feelings and there should definitely not be talks about sectarianism on the rise in Lebanon because of such an incident.
In case you didn’t know, current Ministry of Culture has allowed for construction to take place at the location of the Roman Hippodrome in Beirut. For full details, check out this link.
Before Beirut’s hippodrome made news, however, another heritage site of ours was in danger. A Phoenician Port, over 2500 years old, in the Minet el Hosn region in Downtown Beirut, just behind Monroe Hotel. Venus Real Estate intends to build three towers instead of the port. The location, protected by former Minister of Culture Salim Warde, was compromised when Venus Real Estate used the transitory period between governments and convinced current Minister of Culture Gaby Layoun that the port was dispensable.
Details aside, Association for the Protection of Lebanese Heritage (APHL) is marching for these monuments this Saturday, March 24th. Check out this Facebook event for the details.
I’m glad to see Lebanese people becoming proactive when it comes to things like these. Will you be marching with them?
A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares 