WAR OF THE WORDS
Small conflict escalates into major drama in ‘The Insult’
The largest conflicts can start from the smallest words. It’s not as if we don’t know this — it’s why we get nervous about anything from an accidental slight in a Facebook post to a playground taunt to presidential tweets about North Korea. But Ziad Doueiri’s film “The Insult” drives the point home while offering insight into the Middle East conflict (it’s at least part history lesson) by way of a riveting courtroom drama enhanced by terrific performances.
That’s quite a combination, and Doueiri (“West Beirut,” “The Attack”) handles all the elements with aplomb. Late in the game, the film — an Oscar nominee for best foreign film — gets a little heavy-handed, but never without purpose.
Tony Hanna (Adel Karam) owns a garage and lives with his (very) pregnant wife, Shirine (Rita Hayek) in an apartment in Beirut. Yasser Abdallah Salameh (Kamel El Basha) is a construction foreman. One day, Yasser and his crew are undertaking improvements in the neighborhood when Tony, watering plants on his balcony, splashes water from an illegal drain on them.
Yasser is annoyed but goes to Tony’s apartment to offer to fix the pipe. Tony shuts the door in his face. Yasser fixes the drain anyway. Tony smashes it. Finally, Yasser hurls an obscene insult Tony’s way, and the real drama begins.
That’s because this isn’t just a garden-variety disagreement. Tony belongs — boy, does he belong — to Lebanon’s Christian party (he’s obsessed with the assassinated Bachir Gemayel, whose speeches he watches incessantly). Yasser is a Palestinian who lives in a refugee camp, despite having lived in Beirut for years.
Still, things might not have escalated if either man wasn’t consumed with pride. Tony insists upon an apology. Yasser isn’t inclined to offer one until his boss applies pressure. But when he shows up at Tony’s garage to say he’s sorry, Tony again has Gemayel blaring on his television, railing against Palestinians.
It’s too much for Yasser. He refuses to apologize, and Tony offers an insult of his own: “I wish Ariel Sharon had wiped all of you out.” Yasser responds by punching Tony, breaking a couple of ribs, and a legal battle is engaged.
There’s more drama there. A lowercourt hearing doesn’t go anywhere, so Tony accelerates things, enlisting the services of a well-known, well-heeled lawyer, Wajdi Wehbe (Camille Salameh), a Christian true-believer (and former soldier in the Lebanese civil war). Yasser goes with Nadine Wehbe (Diamand Bou Abboud), who is more liberalminded — and Wajdi’s daughter.
That sounds like an overly melodramatic element introduced for dramatic effect, and let’s be honest, to some extent it is. But Doueiri doesn’t dwell on it; rather, they become emblematic of the generational differences in the acceptance of refugees. Each man becomes a symbol for the opposing sides of the political divide (there’s a nice nod to overheated television “news” shows, showing that the United States doesn’t have a monopoly on the genre). Riots break out, and thoughts of reigniting the civil war surface.
Doueiri was a camera operator for Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” and “Jackie Brown,” so unsurprisingly the film, for all its political import, is fantastic visually. He studied American courtroom dramas while preparing the film, so the pace and cues are familiar, yet the case is different enough to feel original and fresh.
The acting is fantastic all around. Karam and El Basha impart the baked-in frustrations and temperaments of living in a powder-keg culture. Abboud balances the weight of a complex legal defense with trying to escape her father’s shadow. Salameh is most entertaining of all, strutting around the courtroom like a bantam rooster but fully capable of backing up his boastful behavior.
At least from the outside, the movie is not particularly partisan — there is enough blame and damage on both sides to go around, and Doueiri, who cowrote the film with his ex-wife, Joelle Touma, spreads the wealth, as it were.
He goes a little heavy with the history lessons in the last act, and sorting out an ending that satisfies the story is tricky. But overall “The Insult” is a compelling, timely movie. Doueiri is doing what artists do: Making the personal universal, while at the same time showing the impact a few poorly chosen words can carry.