Rated: NR    Runtime: 124 mins.
Like Joanna Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige’s A Perfect Day, also screening in this year’s festival, Ghassan Salhab’s The Last Man evokes the layers of the past that make up Beirut’s sedimented present. Rather than approach history and politics head-on, Salhab’s film does its work through an unlikely idea: a vampire is sucking the lifeblood from Beirut’s citizenry, one victim at a time. A respected doctor, Khalil Shams (Carlos Chahine), whom we see scuba-diving in one of the film’s many enigmatic and beautiful sequences, begins to suspect he himself is the vampire. Recoiling from sunlight, Dr. Shams explores the darker dimensions of a wintry Beirut (seen through Jacques Bouquin's stunning cinematography) as he increasingly questions his own capacity for intimate violence. Titled “Ruins” in Arabic, this dream-like film suggests Beirut as a city continually searching for ways to forget its past, all the while unable to stem the slow bleed of of history back into the City's consciousness. Salhab’s third feature (after Beyrouth Fantôme and Terra Incognita [AFF 2005]) confirms his place as one of the most engaging and poetic voices in Lebanese cinema.(P. Limbrick)
Dir. Ghassan Salhab
Feature Film
2006 | Lebanon/France | 101 min.

Print Source: Agat Films

Shows with short
Garbage
Dir. Lotfi Achour
Short Film
2006 | Tunisia | 23 min.

Through the main character’s obsession with the garbage belonging to the object of his desire, the viewer is treated to the whole gamut of human sexual emotion: from adoration to violent frustration. Director and co-screenwriter Lotfi Achour (who makes a cameo appearance as the postman) reminds us that what we throw out in the trash every day mirrors the habits of our lives, often revealing our innermost secrets. (C. El-Feki)

Print Source: Lotfi Achour

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