Phantom Beirut: a Tribute to Ghassan Salhab

The film begins with frozen images of a nocturnal, lit street. People walk by or sit in an outdoor café. A pleasant end to the day in Beirut. Then an inserted title: ‘Later that night’, and a close-up of a sleeping man. This is what the night is to most people: drifting into unconsciousness when the day is over. For the subject, writer and filmmaker Ghassan Salhab, the night is something else. Ever since early childhood, he has suffered from insomnia. He only sleeps four to five hours a night and lies awake the rest of the time. This is hard, sometimes very hard, he explains. For example, when you are with a woman: watching someone who is sleeping gets boring after a while. And when being criss-crossed in love, it is sheer horror. And yet, Salhab would not want to miss his sleeplessness. He sees it as ‘bonus time’. Without the strange level of consciousness that insomnia brings, with its melancholia and focus of mind, he would not be an artist. In one motionless, uninterrupted shot, director Jalal Toufic registers the musings of Salhab, who sits opposite him at an outdoor table.