Arab Cinema and the vicious circle of violence.

In times of big change, societies produce two kinds of cinema: one of witnessing and the other of analysing. These are two different moments and two ways of dealing with events. From that point of view the selection of Arab films in the 65th Cannes film festival is particularly significant. In the 64th edition, held only a few months after the uprising in Egypt and Tunisia, the festival screened two films: No more fear, a documentary by Tunisian filmmaker Mourad Ben Cheikh, and 18 days made by a group of ten Egyptian filmmakers who took part in the already historical Tahrir Square demonstrations of January and February 2011.
Both films were trying to paint a picture of what was going on. Filmmakers, in different styles and manners, wanted to capture the energy of the moment. That is why what they do is more like recording the events, than really thinking about them. In the 2012 edition of the same festival there were other films from the region in different categories. Baad El Mawkeaa (After the Battle) by Yousry Nasrallah (Egypt) in the main competition, The Horses of God by Nabil Ayouch (Morocco) in Un Certain Regard, and El Taaieb (The Repentant) by Merzak Allouache (Algeria) in the Director’s fortnight. With these last films there is another degree of detachment from the events and hence another depth in their depiction.

”The origin of the devil is the same in all three films: the poor Moroccan slum of Sidi Moumen, the miserable neighborhood of the Egyptian pyramids, and the forgotten villages in the Algerian mountains. The more marginalized and the more humiliated the young people are, the more violent and the more vulnerable they will grow up to be.”

The first reaction to events is to record them. You see them as a whole. Later you see more details because you start to analyse and you turn these details into a fictional story in which you suggest an interpretation of things. The starting point of the three filmmakers is a special moment in the history of their societies. Yousry Nasrallah goes back to February 2nd, 2011 when a group of horsemen and camel riders charged against the demonstrators in the Tahrir Square. Nabil Ayouch also recollects a date; May, 16th, 2003. That day many terrorist explosions took place in Casablanca. As for Allouache, he tells a story in the context of what is called the law of National Reconciliation, which supposed to persuade Algerian jihadists to lay down arms as a condition for their amnesty. The three filmmakers are proceeding to a certain form of fictionalization of history.
Full story : http://www.eutopiainstitute.org/2012/07/arab-cinema-and-the-vicious-circle-of-violence/