Loading ...Screen Daily - The idea here is surreal: make something akin to a documentary with French icon Catherine Deneuve and well-known Lebanese artist/actor Rabih Mroue making a day trip by car from Beirut to the ruins in South Lebanon left over from the Israeli incursion in 2006. The film-making couple of Hadjithomas and Joreige, who proved their imaginative skills with the 2005 Lebanese-set fiction A Perfect Day, succeeded in making it happen. And brilliantly.
These politically-engaged Lebanese co-directors have broken new ground in the documentary/fiction fusion debate, and not only with their dream cast. Once word gets out that Je Veux Voir is such an original work, it will find playdates large and small across the globe. Deneuve’s participation will of course give it a boost.
In the film Deneuve is in Beirut for a glamorous gala, but insists “Je veux voir” (”I want to see”) the carnage wrought against innocent civilians in Israel ’s pursuit of members of Hezbollah in the summer of 2006.”I feel it’s impossible to stay on the fringe,” she adds. She means it. This is not the classic Hollywood scenario of an up-and-coming star meeting with a facilitator to find the right charity for his or her marketing image. It rings with sincerity and curiosity… [Full Story]
