Lebanon : documenting the civil war -

Abstract

The war in Lebanon brought destruction twice. There was the initial destruction of the war, followed by what was arguably an equally damaging effort by the ruling classes to erase the war’s memory and to repress its history. This erasure, some say, has perpetuated the war in Lebanon, placing the nation on an ineluctable path toward more violence. Through their work, documentary filmmakers in Lebanon have subverted attitudes of both official amnesia and competing narratives about the civil war. Reflexive techniques – those that call attention to the constructed nature of the film itself – have played an important role in their work. Filmmakers include themselves in their own work – representation of their own bodies, their own voices, and own experiences, reflecting both the subjective nature of media and more generally, the subjective nature of human experience. Following this reflexivity, they are then able to effectively deconstruct prevailing narratives about the war. In doing so, they provide an artistic alternative to physical violence. This project adopts Ruby’s (1980) theory of reflexivity to investigate four films about the civil war in Lebanon: Sleepless Nights (2013), Chou Sar? (2009), In Spite of War (2001), and A Lesson in History (2009).