Civil War

A dentist explains how stress can cause a sudden outbreak of cavities, and that Lebanon has the highest rate of tooth decay in the world. We see shots of the streets of Beirut, accompanied by the sounds of wild animals. Fictional intermezzos with actors alternate with interviews with friends and family of the late Mohamed Douybaess, filmmaker Mohamad Soueid's friend and former assistant. And in between all this, the film drifts away to such events as the death of Egyptian film celebrity Souad Hosny, 9/11 and a concert by pop star Katia Harb. With each fragment of Civil War, it’s as if Soueid is attempting to start a new film—to approach the subject from yet another new perspective. What angle can lead to an explanation of Douybaess’s mysterious disappearance and death? It’s hard to reconstruct history from the ruins of war. This kaleidoscopic film shows how, though more than a decade has passed since its official end, the civil war is still very much alive in the collective psyche of Lebanon—along with the repression and sexual frustration that, according to a theory that Douybaess held, was the war’s initial cause.