Je veux voir (2008)
Directed by Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige

Film Review

Here is a film whose premise appears, on the face of it, to be completely bonkers.  Take a glamorous world-renowned actress, a film star who, in some people's eyes, is the epitome of western privilege and decadence,  and induce her to go on a sightseeing tour of the bombed out carcass of a war-ravaged Middle East country.  So as not to make the experience of witnessing death, misery and destruction too easy, let the aforementioned actress be accompanied by a man who can only just about speak her language and is such a fan of hers that he can recite whole chunks of dialogue from films she made forty years ago.  Less implausible scenarios than this have been rejected by the makers of The Simpsons.  Yet from this insane concept has sprung one of the most incisive and poignant reflections on how the Middle East is seen by the West, a film that is more authentic and more revealing than the hours of BBC news footage that have saturated our TV screens and our minds over the past decade.

Je veux voir was originally conceived as a fifteen-minute short but was expanded when its directors, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, realised they had amassed enough material of sufficient quality for a feature.  Hadjithomas and Joreige are the team who had previously distinguished themselves with Autour de la maison rose (1999) and A perfect day (2005).  They were inspired to make Je veux voir at the time of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, which saw regions of southern Lebanon devastated by Israeli bombing.  Their intention was to capture on film history as it was being made, not merely to make a documentary but to show how a historical perspective is forged from the drama of the moment and people's immediate reaction to it. 

When Catherine Deneuve was approached to appear in this film, she accepted almost without a moment's hesitation.  Despite her iconic status, the actress has a history of agreeing to take on unusual roles in low budget and low profile productions, something that has earned her a reputation as a free spirit and true friend of independent cinema.   Deneuve's co-star here is the successful Lebanese actor and writer, Rabih Mroué.   The difficulty that the two actors have in communicating (Mroué can just about make himself understood with his very limited French) creates a distance between them which serves the film well, standing as a metaphor for the West's inability to understand the problems of the Middle East.

Je veux voir is a vague mix of road-movie and travelogue which powerfully evokes the West's ambivalence towards the Middle East.  There is something oddly surreal in the spectacle of a screen goddess being manoeuvred around ruins, landmines and cluster bombs by her entourage who appear distinctly blasé about the prospect of being blown to pieces.  As she heads off into the urban wreck that is Beirut, a subtly aloof Deneuve claims that she wants to see, but we never know what it is she is looking for or hopes to gain from her impromptu exploration of a war-scarred country.  The film is as much a tribute to a beautiful region that has been virtually devastated by conflict as it is a statement of the West's inability to fully engage with the Middle East.  Of course we want to see, but do we really want to get involved?  Watching this eccentric but moving little film is an intense and shaming experience.

Film Synopsis

The world famous actress Catherine Deneuve is in Beirut to attend a charity gala.  Before the gala, she insists on making a tour of Lebanon, so that she can see something of the people and the land that have been ravaged by years of bloody conflict.  Accompanied by another actor, Rabih Mroué, she sets out on a life-changing voyage of discovery...