{"id":9399,"date":"2022-07-15T08:33:03","date_gmt":"2022-07-15T06:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/?p=9399"},"modified":"2022-12-25T11:22:46","modified_gmt":"2022-12-25T09:22:46","slug":"lebanon-in-a-loop-a-retrospective-of-waves-98","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/lebanon-in-a-loop-a-retrospective-of-waves-98\/","title":{"rendered":"Lebanon in a Loop: A Retrospective of &#8220;Waves &#8217;98&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_9401\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9401\" style=\"width: 1400px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mubi.com\/films\/waves-98\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9401\" src=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Waves-\u201898-5-courtesy-ely-dagher-the-markaz-review.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1400\" height=\"622\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Waves-\u201898-5-courtesy-ely-dagher-the-markaz-review.jpg 1400w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Waves-\u201898-5-courtesy-ely-dagher-the-markaz-review-600x267.jpg 600w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Waves-\u201898-5-courtesy-ely-dagher-the-markaz-review-300x133.jpg 300w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Waves-\u201898-5-courtesy-ely-dagher-the-markaz-review-1024x455.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Waves-\u201898-5-courtesy-ely-dagher-the-markaz-review-768x341.jpg 768w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Waves-\u201898-5-courtesy-ely-dagher-the-markaz-review-1320x586.jpg 1320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9401\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Outtake from Waves &#8217;98 (courtesy <a href=\"https:\/\/mubi.com\/films\/waves-98\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ely Dagher<\/a>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In the surrealist film <em>Waves &#8217;98<\/em>, a young Lebanese man named Omar wastes away in Beirut&#8217;s segregated suburbs, in the late &#8217;90s. Eventually, his disillusionment with post-civil war suburban life lures him into the city&#8217;s depths, where he slowly loses touch with reality as he struggles to maintain his sense of belonging to the hollow world around him.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Youssef Manessa<\/p>\n<\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We open on the decrepit face of a sad, old man \u2014 slowly zooming in until an abstract current within him leads us into what looks like inner decay. Footage from an LBC broadcast is then screened, but before the anchor can deliver the news, it cuts to our protagonist Omar, on his bed, staring up at the ceiling as the news anchor drones on about the waste crisis.<\/p>\n<p>A phone suddenly rings, but no one answers. No one seems to see a reason to. So it goes to voicemail over a montage of news footage and Omar\u2019s drab apartment and disinterested parents.<\/p>\n<p>The voice on the machine tells <em>us<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI\u2019m tired of hearing the same story over and over again. It\u2019s like everything\u2019s stuck in a loop. I\u2019m tired of my house, my bed. Tired of all these depressing stories. Everyone is fed up. They wake every morning to the same news, same chaos, and mess. Nothing ever changes. I don\u2019t want to end up like them.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As we\u2019re hearing this, we don\u2019t know who&#8217;s calling or what he&#8217;s referring to, but we don\u2019t need to.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone from Lebanon watching this knows <em>exactly<\/em> what he\u2019s talking about.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"WAVES &#039;98 Trailer | Festival 2015\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dUr8CzaMzqY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Much has been said over the years about the complex relationship Beirutis have with their city. Gone are the days when the capital of this beleaguered nation could call itself \u201cthe Paris of the Middle East,\u201d and in the aftermath of a brutal civil war, few, if any, were sold on the promises of the reconstruction era that vowed to restore the capital to its former glory. Now that peace has lasted for decades, a new generation of artists has emerged who were not conscious of the war but grew up in its wreckage, acutely aware that the promises of a golden age restored were frivolous lies. These lies were told and retold to us as our future was stolen right out of our bank accounts \u2014 leaving us with the empty platitudes of Mr. Lebanon and his neoliberal paradise that was always just a couple of years away.<\/p>\n<p>Using a mix of animation, live-action footage, and photography, the Lebanese short film <em>Waves \u201898<\/em> incomparably captures the deceptions and disappointments of the era in all its complexity and nuance, never offering us the simple solutions that we\u2019ve become weary of as Lebanon spirals out of control. Set during the waste crisis of 1998 \u2014 an event chosen by its writer\/director Ely Dagher as it was one of the few that affected everyone in Lebanon from all sects and both sides of the political spectrum \u2014 the film follows Omar, a Lebanese teenager wasting away in the segregated suburbs of Beirut, where his disillusionment with post-civil war life lures him into the city\u2019s depths. There, Omar slowly loses touch with reality as he struggles to maintain his sense of belonging to the hollow world around him.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not long before he encounters a colossal crystalline elephant in the heart of the dying city \u2014 the film panning up to it in all its glory, then zooming in on to Omar as he stares up at it in awe. For the first time, the screen is awash with warm colors, the allure of something so sublime irresistible in a place as miserable as Beirut.\u00a0 As Omar approaches the elephant\u2019s snout, an opening reveals itself. When he looks to his side, he sees other youth jumping into other openings, but still hesitant, Omar balks at the opportunity\u2026only for a beam of light to shoot out and pull him into the elephant.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And here, one stylistic choice sticks out.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Throughout the short film, a collage of animation and filmmaking techniques is used to meld the fantastical and the mundane \u2014 heightening Omar\u2019s disorientation as he slowly loses touch with the reality around him. Notably, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beirut and its ever-present news broadcasts are neither animated nor even illustrated. Rather they\u2019re depicted with footage and photographs of the real thing. Reality, it seems, must always be drawn from live-action footage and photographs just as the fantastical is only shown to us through animation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet Omar and those around him are animated \u2014 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">just like the crystalline elephant is. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Perhaps, that\u2019s what allows them inside?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>But what happens inside the elephant is as mundane as the elephant is surreal. Omar is allowed to live out the life that Beirut prevents him from enjoying \u2014 the life he craves, being both beautiful and heartbreaking in its modest desires. What we are shown here is that the wonders of the unreal are our only hope when imprisoned by the listlessness of the real. But even though the elephant seems to be Omar\u2019s only way out of the doldrums of Lebanese life, it is also an illusion that isolates him from the life he\u2019s actually living and harms the world around him.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hanging heavily and visibly over the city, the elephant isn\u2019t the safe haven that Omar and other youth make it out to be. As it makes its way through the urban sprawl, it destroys buildings and damages roads until it can no longer sustain itself and collapses. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unlike the concrete that overwhelms Beirut, the elephant is made out of a fragile substance malleable enough to change and accommodate those it allows in \u2014 but that also means that it could fall apart at any moment. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet, in Omar\u2019s eyes, both somehow coexist on the same plane. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What that means is only apparent when the crystalline elephant collapses onto the city after yet another news broadcast. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Not only is the elephant what Beirut isn\u2019t, but it\u2019s what Beirut could be&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>\nOne question lies at the heart of the film:<\/p>\n<p>Who is the old man?<\/p>\n<p>When we are first introduced to him, he appears to be some sort of apparition haunting our protagonist. But is he the kind of phantom that reemerges from our pasts?<\/p>\n<p>Not quite.<\/p>\n<p>We can\u2019t be sure of whose speaking when we first hear the voice mail \u2014 only when the scene on the shore, later on, is serenaded with Omar\u2019s musings that we finally understand that it was him all along. But then, at the end of the film, snippets from the voicemail come out of the old man\u2019s mouth as he re-emerges from the darkness.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What is being communicated to us is clear:<\/p>\n<p>The old man was once Omar. Omar may become the old man.<\/p>\n<p>For the old man is not a revenant from Omar\u2019s past, but a specter of the future he fears for himself.<\/p>\n<p>And, when he and it finally confront each other, this is the phrase that the old man repeats:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIt feels like everything is stuck in a loop?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This is where the cycle comes together. But will it loop or repeat?<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>\nChallenging and experimental, the film was unlike anything Lebanese cinema had seen up till the point of its release in 2015. What could\u2019ve easily ended up an impenetrable mess resulted in a moving meditation on the post-war disillusionment of Lebanese youth \u2014 one prescient enough that, even though I was only three years old when the film takes place, I could\u2019ve easily imagined it being about me or any of my friends growing up in Beirut more than ten years later.<\/p>\n<p>And there\u2019s something heartbreaking about that.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9400\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9400\" style=\"width: 580px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9400\" src=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ely-Dagher-waves-98-the-markaz-reivew.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"580\" height=\"385\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ely-Dagher-waves-98-the-markaz-reivew.jpg 580w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ely-Dagher-waves-98-the-markaz-reivew-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9400\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ely Dagher is a Lebanese director, screenwriter, and artist known for his short film <em>Waves &#8217;98<\/em> and most recently his first feature film <em>The Sea Ahead<\/em>, which had its premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. <em>Waves &#8217;98<\/em> won the Short Film Palme d&#8217;Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first Lebanese film to ever receive the award.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Though set in 1998, little if anything had changed when this film was released in 2015. Even though the filmmaker firmly establishes the time period he\u2019s examining \u2014 going as far as to include it in the title \u2014 there\u2019s something timeless explored here about the Lebanese condition. A condition that seems to be stuck in a loop, on repeat, endlessly. That\u2019s why it comes as no surprise to me that Lebanon would experience yet another waste crisis only months after this film was first screened. Led by the grassroots organization &#8220;You Stink!&#8221;, protests took place throughout the summer, culminating in large gatherings that August that would spawn the political campaign known as Beirut Madinati. This initiative would historically garner more than 50% of the votes in the Christian district of East Beirut and more than a third of the vote in Sunni Muslim neighborhoods, signaling an unprecedented shift in the local political scene. These dwindling sentiments in the traditional post-war political class, coupled with a burgeoning economic crisis, collapsing infrastructure, and endemic corruption stirred up a revolutionary fervor unseen since the Cedar Revolution of 2005. Millions gathered on the streets of Lebanon, condemning sectarian rule and calling on the resignation of the Lebanese political elite who for the first time in decades feared the people whose lives they ran into the ground. It wouldn\u2019t be long until Saad Hariri, the Prime Minister at the time, would resign, and the future that was promised to us by his late father seemed to be finally within reach\u2026but the protests would not last.<\/p>\n<p>Confronted by the vitriol of the people, za\u2019ims (political leaders) sent thugs out into the street to aid the army in quelling the rebellion. It wasn\u2019t long until a financial crisis \u2014 one of the worst in recorded history \u2014 would devalue the currency and eat up all of our savings. The Beirut Blast would soon follow only a couple of months later. By this time, the revolution was over and Saad Hariri would be designated Prime Minister again, only to fail to form a cabinet again only for Najib Mikati who had been Prime Minister twice before to take on another term. Again\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, those who could flee the country would, and those who were forced to remain, were now preoccupied with trying to maintain what little these za\u2019ims \u2014 who took everything from us \u2014 had allowed us to hold on to.<\/p>\n<p>This is not the first time the Lebanese have lost their savings, nor the first time that our currency has been made worthless by the careless fiscal policy of the financial elite. It is not the first time that Beirut has been ravaged, nor the first time in modern history that it has been decimated by an explosion. Years on from the waste crisis of 2015, we still haven\u2019t even been able to clean up the mountains of trash from that time. These mountains loom large over Lebanon \u2014 larger every day, garbage piling on top of garbage, only for the structures to collapse in on themselves\u2026then grow again with further accumulation.<\/p>\n<p>This has all happened before, and alas, if history is any indicator, it will happen again.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Dagher is right.<\/p>\n<p>Lebanon, it seems, is in a loop, endlessly reliving the same tragedies over and over again \u2014 the same news, same chaos, and mess. Nothing ever changes.\u00a0 There is little doubt in my mind that those of us left here such as myself, will end up like them.<\/p>\n<p><em>And there\u2019s nothing we can do about it.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There is a sense of entitlement in what we expect from art. We expect art to offer solutions to the state of affairs it explores, not just portray it in all its suffocating listlessness\u2026but can it?<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9403\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9403\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mubi.com\/films\/waves-98\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-9403 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/waves-98-lebanese-movie-poster.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"667\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/waves-98-lebanese-movie-poster.jpg 500w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/waves-98-lebanese-movie-poster-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9403\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Watch the film <a href=\"https:\/\/mubi.com\/films\/waves-98\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In the darkness, Omar\u2019s eyes open again.<\/p>\n<p>An opening from outside the elephant appears, shining light onto his weary eyes.<\/p>\n<p>We see now that the crystalline elephant is suspended above the sea.<\/p>\n<p>Omar stands on the ledge, the wind blowing against him, as the old man haunting him fades back into the darkness he came from.<\/p>\n<p>The film ends with the camera slowly zooming out on the lone figure of the crystalline elephant hovering before the endless sprawl\u2026.<\/p>\n<p>Does <em>Waves \u201898<\/em> offer us, or in other words, Omar, a way out?<\/p>\n<p>Not quite.<\/p>\n<p>After it collapses, Omar wakes up in the elephant again, standing on the edge of the opening as it hovers above the sea \u2014 the dream behind him, the nightmare facing him \u2014 always facing him.<\/p>\n<p>What will he do next?<\/p>\n<p>Will Omar jump into the sea or head back inside?<\/p>\n<p>Will the cycle break, or will it loop?<\/p>\n<p>But, in the end, does it even matter?<\/p>\n<p>In all of these options, there is no escaping Beirut.<\/p>\n<p>For it seems that Beirut isn\u2019t just a city. It\u2019s a state of mind.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Watch the film <a href=\"https:\/\/mubi.com\/films\/waves-98\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Youssef Manessa reviews a short film from Ely Dagher that speaks to his generation of Lebanese born in the &#8217;90s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":9401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18,24,72],"tags":[223,323,588,1028,1469,1792],"coauthors":[2183],"class_list":["post-9399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","category-film-review","category-review","category-tmr-23-madness","tag-arab-film","tag-beirut","tag-ely-dagher","tag-lebanese-civil-war","tag-revolution","tag-waste-crisis","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is 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