The Insult (L’insulte)
(Lebanon/France, 112 min.)
Written and directed by Ziad Doueiri
Starring: Abdel Karam, Kamel El Basha, Camille
Salamé, Christine Choueiri
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| Cohen Media Group |
The
Insult is a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film
this year and come March 4th it could be the winner. Lebanon’s
contender The Insult is a thrilling,
gripping, and thought-provoking essay on collective trauma and letting go. The
film is both a riveting courtroom drama and a powerful moral fable as
writer/director Ziad Doueiri constructs a taut grudge match packed tight like a bomb. There are shards of hate and prejudice wedged deeply within the
explosive that threatens to go off at any moment, and this volatile thriller
dexterously defuses the bomb. Breathe a sigh of relief and let old wounds heal.
Doueiri draws upon an encounter he experienced when a clash with a repairman escalated into a feud with bitter roots. That’s what works so well about The Insult: everything happens so quickly and so casually that it feels plausible in its wildest moments. Even when the drama escalates to extremes, Doueiri keeps it tightly under control and on a tether.
The dramatization features has an inciting
event to the incident that the director experienced. A homeowner, Toni (Abdel
Karam), doesn’t want a repairman, Yasser (Kamel El Basha), entering his
apartment to fix a drainpipe on the balcony. (One should note that Yasser and
his team were working on the street when the illegal drainage from Toni’s
balcony splashed water all over them.) Taking the practical route and acting
upon the approval of the building’s superintendent, Yasser mounts a ladder,
fixes the pipe, and gives Toni a new drain easy peasy.
And then Toni smashes it, which inspires
Yasser to call him a fucking prick.
Two other significant details to note: Toni is
a Lebanese Christian and Yasser is Palestinian refugee. This dynamic flares up
when Yasser half-assedly apologizes and Toni utters a repugnant remark that he
wishes the man and all his kind had been wiped out. Where Toni smashed the
drainpipe, Yasser gives him an equally forceful punch to the gut.
The tension between the men and their
respective cultures escalates immediately. As each man refuses to apologize for
his behaviour, the feud assumes greater cultural and historical significance. Toni
and Yasser take stands not just for their own dignity, but for the honour of their
people who have suffered blows throughout history.
The case gains national interest when Toni
presses assault charges against Yasser. The lawyers on both sides of the case
see the cultural and religious divides as cards to play in their defence. The
film poses fascinating and challenging questions that are relevant beyond the
divide between Lebanese Christians and Palestinian refugees: can cultural
oppression ever justify hate and violence? How long may rivalry or hostility be the status quo?
The crime becomes not the punch, but the
motivation behind it, and The Insult
thrillingly puts the weight of the past on trial. Things escalate even further
when Toni’s lawyer, a hotshot mouthpiece for Christian conservatism named Wajdi
Wehbe (Camille Salamé in performance that is delightfully verbose and
confidently over the top) makes a not-so-accidental slight at the Jews during
one of his theatrical cross-examinations. The case becomes a small scale civil
war.
The
Insult nearly pushes the boundaries of plausibility
as tensions clash between the Christians, Palestinians, and Jews. The courtroom
audience becomes a raucous circus each time Wajdi Wehbe, who humorously does
all his speaking in the third person, pushes the buttons of the crowd to
reiterate the cultural tension that is ingrained within his client. Not to be
outdone, Yasser’s lawyer Manal (Christine Choueiri) relishes the opportunity of
her Law & Order audition to make
each cross-examination an effort to smash the patriarchy and to argue for the
next generation to put the grievances of their fathers to rest. The
theatricality of Salamé and Choueiri’s performances illustrate the film's firm
grasp of the allegorical conventions and dynamics of the courtroom.
The choice to marinate in the past or to
accept/offer forgiveness and move forward, however, is ultimately up to individuals.
The Insult succeeds in its tricky
morality play by giving two equally complex and complicated foils. Karam is a
volatile personification of toxic masculinity as the hot-headed Toni. Beefed up
with anger and sweating with machismo, his moody male proudly and defiantly
wears the chips on his shoulders like well-earned epaulettes. El Basha, on the
other hand, gives a performance of restraint and wounded dignity as Yasser. The
elder actor, who won Best Actor at Venice last year despite having the less
showier role of the two parts, carries years of anger and rootlessness on his
back. Where anger pops from the screen when Toni appears, Yasser’s presence is
cold and resigned with simmering frustration. The contrasting nature of the
characters provides a fine clash of egos in search of harmony. The Insult nimbly navigates the
minefield of political tensions embedded within the Middle East to offer a
hopeful and healing plea for peace.
