Tag Archives: Lebanon

Beirut Hotel – Movie Review

Beirut Hotel Movie Poster
I finally watched Danielle Arbid’s infamous Beirut Hotel, the Lebanese movie that has spurred a huge controversy back in November due to it being banned from Lebanese theaters. The reason I took time to watch it is twofold: one because I hadn’t heard of any good responses towards it. And two because I didn’t want to waste my time on a movie whose trailer made it look cheesy and whose hype was only generated by the simple fact that everything forbidden is usually wanted.

Upon watching Beirut Hotel, I can say for myself that my initial thoughts about the movie were perfectly on point – and no, this is not a case of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Zoha (Darine Hamze) is a sultry singer, more often than not out of tune, at one of Beirut’s bars. The purpose of her singing is not to please the ear as it is to please the eye and Zoha knows this perfectly well. She then meets an enigmatic French man named Mathieu (Charles Berling) with whom she has a late night talk, including informing him of the bar she sings at, before going back home, after a late night kiss of course.

Soon enough, Mathieu is infatuated by Zoha and starts following her around, which she finds creepy (as well as charming). So she storms into his hotel room the following day and before you know it, the anger subsides and turns into sex. But Mathieu may not be the lawyer he claims he is. And with a man wanting to exchange information about Hariri’s assassination for safe-haven in France, things will get messy. Add to that Zoha’s husband (Rodney Haddad) who can’t seem to let her go.

All of this may sound interesting. But trust me, the script is as cheesy and useless as it gets. Remember when Zoha tells Mathieu where she works? Well, when she storms into his hotel room the following day, she actually asks him how he knew where she worked – that is before they sleep together.

In fact, the Darine Hamze sex scenes in the movie are so out of place you can’t but feel they’ve been put there solely for the reason of making an uneventful movie talk-worthy, along the lines of: “There is a moment where Darine Hamze’s breasts show” – cue in thousands of Lebanese who are shocked that a Lebanese actress actually went there.

It is here that I have to commend Darine Hamze for the guts it took her to bare it all in this movie, be it through the various sex scenes or through the obvious sexual appeal she conveyed. She may be the only “good” thing about Beirut Hotel. It’s sad that what she does comes off as forced in the movie.

If Beirut Hotel had been let be – not made into a big media frenzy because of the Hariri plot line it contained, the movie would have crashed and burned at the Lebanese box office because, whether we like to admit it or not, most of us are very cautious when it comes to Lebanese movies. We only watch them when word of mouth is substantial enough to convince us to spend the ticket money on them. Word of mouth would have failed Beirut Hotel, as it should. The movie which takes Beirut’s name not only shows the city in a negative light, I was more than often surprised to see this is the Lebanese capitol we all cherish, coupled with a silly storyline that grasps at straws to become eventful.

2/10

A Lebanese Fight On MEA Plane from Paris to Beirut

Leave it to the Lebanese to forget every bit of “civilization” they’ve learned in Paris the moment their plane leaves the tarmac to their home country.

The first is “ebn l Chouf,” the second is “ebn Baalbak” because one’s region is enough threat apparently. Soon enough, the crew is involved in calming the men, followed by calls for every Holy figure known to man. Yes, a typical Lebanese fight – at several kilometers in the air – down to those filming planning to post it on YouTube the moment they land.

Well, the video is on Facebook and you can watch it here or on YouTube:

Does anyone know why they were fighting in the first place?

The Batroun – Tannourine Highway

Back in 2000, I used to go on trips to Tannourine with a friend and complain about the constant works taking place on the roads leading there.

“It’s for a good thing,” the man always told me. I never knew what he meant until very recently. I only realized the importance of the full scope of the project at hand yesterday when it took me ten minutes to get from my hometown to Tannourine, using the newly opened section of the Batroun-Tannourine Highway, the part extending from the town of Bejdarfel to Assia.

Easier commute, easier ambulance trips, easier impromptu road trips…. You name it.

We, as Lebanese, always nag about the dismal state of our infrastructure. So it’s nice to highlight something good for a change. And this is definitely on the advanced side. Instead of working on already existing roads, they’ve created new ones in valleys and mountains to cut distances short. And the effort put in the highway shows.

There’s still a little more work that needs to be done on some of the newly finished sections: put up lanes and fix some asphalt-related issues, but overall, it is a great drive. At some points, with the towering mountains around you all full of snow, you feel like you’ve been taken out of the stereotype image you have of Lebanon and to some section of the Italian alps. It is absolutely breathtaking.

Batroun’s MPs have been working hard to get the highway plans underway and hopefully their enthusiasm and the highway will be properly maintained. The final stretch of the project extending from my hometown, Ebrine, to Batroun will start soon.

The newly finished part, just outside the town of Bejdarfel

Just outside my best friend's hometown: Boxmaya. Apparently you can go to Al Koura from here as well. I had no idea.

The older part of the highway

I bet Fairuz would be happy that her trip from Hamlaya to Tannourine is rendered much shorter now.

Kataeb and Ahrar “History Book” Protest Turns Bloody – Reminiscent of Syrian Occupation Days

No, the above picture is not from the long gone anti-Syrian protests. No, the above picture is not out of a history book, which might never be written.

The above is a picture from a few hours ago, in Downtown Beirut, of Kataeb and Ahrar supporters getting beaten up by Lebanese armed forces, during a protest against the proposed history book, drafted by Lebanon’s unicolor government.

The differences between then and now are striking. The ultimate scene, however, is quite the same: Lebanese protesting flagrant violations of their rights and armed personnel beating them up for speaking up. The difference? The order to beat up the protesters was Syrian back then. This time, however, it’s Lebanese – or as “Lebanese” as it can get.

The Lebanese army was present. It did not interfere. After all, what’s the Lebanese army doing these days except sitting on the sidelines setting up checkpoints in irrelevant places, doing nothing to protect the people it should be working hard to keep safe?

The students were stopped by the armed forces on their way to the Grand Serail. As a result, 14 of the students were injured and transferred to nearby hospitals.

In a country with no victors, how could the current government expect people to forget about their history, their struggles, their own revolutions and be subdued to its version of a history which glorifies events that shouldn’t be glorified and forgets about other incidents that should never be forgotten?

In a country with no victors, how could the Lebanese armed forces take a side against the protesters in such a way, when if the other “team” protested, the only thing they’d be doing is cower away in their barracks eating tawouk? For our armed forces, a bunch of university students protesting a book is far more dangerous than hundreds of men dressed in black shirts roaming the streets of Beirut in obvious display of tactical power. Where were the armed forces then? Or do they only know to stand against those that are “weak” in Lebanese society?

In a country with no victors, what warrants a select group of unqualified people to write a book where they highlight the struggles of people from “down under,” while neglecting the struggles of every single other portion of Lebanese society?

I am sick and tired of being treated as subclass citizen by the state of Lebanon because:

1) I did not live under Israeli occupation.

2) I do not support a political party which flaunts its weapons.

3) I am not of a certain sect, which is protected by some “un”holy parties.

I am sick and tired of not being able to trust any of Lebanon’s armed forces and them not doing anything in any way whatsoever to bridge the gap of bias they have created across Lebanon.

I am sick and tired of loving a country so much when with each passing moment they make me feel like I have no place here – even when it comes to talking about a history book.

But I’m sorry to break it to them – students and real activists who were not deterred by the brutality of the Syrian regime will not fear a government whose only reason of existing is the “un”holy backbone it has. And a history book, which is as biased as the one currently written, will never pass.

After all, if a history book was irrelevant, why were those students beaten up?

The Hurdles Facing Lebanese Women Today – Happy International Women’s Day?

This is a guest post by Agnès Semaan, a current law student at the Université Saint–Esprit de Kaslik (USEK). You can follow her on twitter here.

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I’ll start this article by sharing with you some of what I learned at law school:

1) If you want to cheat on your wife, do it with many girls not just one long-term extra marital affair or simply don’t bring your mistress home because only then can a man be trialed for adultery.

2) I learned that if my rapist married me, his crime would be nullified.

3) I learned that I cannot sue my husband if he raped me.

4) I learned that if I want my children to be Lebanese, I better marry a Lebanese because that’s the only way for my children to get my nationality.

I’m not a Feminazi. I’m just someone who noticed how this day lost its political flavor. The International Women’s Day is not about forwarding some cheesy Whatsapp message to all your girlfriends wishing them a nice day, It’s a day that honors the work of the Suffragettes that campaigned for women’s right to vote and most of all to remind us that inequities still need to be redressed.

And it is here that I address the following:

 

1 – Nationality

Why nationality is needed is quite simple: if you don’t have the Lebanese nationality you must continuously secure residency and work permits that enable you to live and work legally in Lebanon and you are not granted access to public education and other services at the same low fees that Lebanese citizens do.

Here’s a fun fact: an Ottoman law allowed women to naturalize their children, as in grant full citizenship rights, when born on Ottoman soil regardless of the spouse’s nationality.

I can go on and on about how not being able, as a woman, to pass your nationality to your children weakens the woman’s status and role because she’s not treated as an equal citizen; thus contradicting the Lebanese constitution, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). But let’s face it, it comes down to the Palestinians and the right of return. Some lawmakers are against this in order to protect Palestinians’ right to return to Palestine (UN General Assembly resolution 194). So since that’s the case, why are we not worried about Palestinian women who get married to Lebanese men?!

2 – Penal code

Lebanon must amend discriminatory laws to ensure conformity with CEDAW and international standards like the international Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action of 1995. The sanctity of the private home, guaranteed in our constitution, should not be a getaway in affairs of sexual domestic violence because marital rape is still rape and it definitely needs legal recognition (art. 503 and 504). However, this law needs to have a safety net for the husbands because they will be abused if the law is overprotective and over cautious because otherwise one will be able to blackmail their spouse using the prerogative bestowed by this law upon them. Many reforms must be made to the criminal law for the simple reason that it’s not acceptable that a rapist not be prosecuted and his conviction be nullified if he marries the victim (art.522) and that a man will only be tried for adultery if he has extra-marital sex in the conjugal home or if he has a long-term extra-marital relationship along with a much softer sentence than a woman would get in such circumstances (articles 478, 488 and 489)?

3 – Inheritance

Current status: an absolute failure.

It’s 2012 and a Muslim girl still gets half of what her brother inherits. I can’t even begin to describe how dreadful this law is. Every single word in the formulation of that law is insulting and to go into every detail would make this post extremely long and repulsive. The Christian personal status law, although better, still fails in different areas mainly with all the “smartassery” there, such as the implied notion that Muslims cannot inherit from Christians. What we need is an optional civil law, point à la ligne.

4 – Elections and the quota

Yes. Women should not be limited in a certain number of candidates. Why can’t all the 128 deputies in parliament be females? It’s a viable question and absolutely rightful to be asked. But let’s not get carried away in our wishful, foolishly optimistic thinking: Half a loaf of bread is better than no bread at all, and this is an effective way to encourage women to run for elections. So that’s why we should at least start by ratifying a women’s quota bill before 2013.

5 – The women?

Why do we find time to complain about traffic, politicians, watch a soccer game going on in some European country and get carried away, change our display picture on blackberry 20 times per day, tweet about Christian Louboutin’s new collection, comment “hayete kom t belle!”on EVERY.SINGLE.PICTURE. but we can’t find time to address the previously mentioned issues? Rights are not given, they are taken and that’s why we need to raise our voices to make ourselves heard in a sea of male politicians who quench our voices simply by them outnumbering us in every way possible. It is here that I find that women are the main hurdle facing women. We tend to be cynical with regards to each other, pessimistic about each other assuming power, that we believe the best options out there are not really women. And the cycle repeats itself, leading to more and more marginalization of this half of the Lebanese society.

I’ll finish by saying this: it’s not hard to change laws. Get a bunch of influential women into parliament and you’re well underway. Our greatest challenge here is not changing the laws but changing Lebanese mentalities. Ratifying new laws might be the first step in that direction. Until next year, here’s hoping my fellow Lebanese women that we’ll see some change.