A movie which Rutvica insisted we should see
and since we had spend all our time in Oxford talking
she suggested to take her laptop on the bus to London
and as the green English landscape passed by us
we were absorbed in the poetry,
the dazzling, sharp and beautiful verse (!),
the pounding rhythm of the lyrics, images and music
of this gem, this song of love and politics.
Words from the director, Sally Potter:
“I began by writing an argument between two lovers,
one a man from the Middle East (the Lebanon), the
other a woman from the West (an Irish-American) at a
point where their love affair has become an explosive
war-zone, with the differences in their backgrounds
starting to cast a long shadow over their intimacy.
He has decided to end the affair, for he finds he can
no longer tolerate the imbalance of worldly power in
their relationship; nor the challenge that the affair
poses to his identity. His belief in God, and in the
world he left behind, begins to surface once more,
and now seems a higher calling than the call of love
and sex. All that first attracted him to this blonde
American professional woman now reminds him only
of his humiliation and loss.
He pushes her away at the very moment that her
marriage seems to have broken down irretrievably,
increasing her sense of isolation. For the first time in
their relationship he seems to have all the power in his
hands – the power to say ‘no’. But as he rejects her,
the deeper reasons for his anger and anguish gradually
emerge; the pain and humiliation he experiences every
day as a man from the Middle East living in the West.
These two characters, each trying to listen to the other,
and each wanting to be heard, formed the basis of the
story, which developed to include other characters, each
of whom is wrestling with his or her beliefs; whether
religious, political, or – in the case of the cleaner who
is a sort of one woman comic Greek chorus – about
the true nature of dirt.”
Oh dear friends, you must see this movie. yes the movie