Of all the Arab films I saw this year, no other has left such a strong impact me than Safinez Bousbia's Algeria-set musical documentary “El Gusto,” one of the finest Arabic non-fiction features ever made. Dubbed by several critics as the Algerian “Buena Vista Social Club,” Bousbia's sunny, nostalgic film — which had its world premiere at the Abu Dhabi Film Fest — traces the history of ‘Chaabi' music, a hugely popular genre combing Andalusian melodies with religious singing and Berber traditions, and whose subjects often dealt with loss, longing and exile. “Andalusian music was for intellectuals and music snobs,” one musician reminisces, “Chaabi music was for the masses.” The history of the genre, and Casbah — the birthplace of Chaabi and home to working class Jews and Muslims at the beginning of the 20th Century — is framed through the story of the eponymous orchestra, founded by Chaabi master El Hadj El Anka, and its members. The Algeria of the ‘30s and ‘40s is a radically different place from the socially conservative nation it's known as now; a modern, culturally rich retreat distinguished for its religious harmony and overruling vivacity. In its heyday, the Casbah, as one Gusto member said, rivaled the Olympia Theater in Paris. Whisky floated in the bars, coffee shops and cabarets crowding the Casbah; beautiful women flaunted their short dresses to the flirtatious onlookers and Chaabi music echoed from every corner of the district. The face of this now unfamiliar Algeria changed as the revolution started to sweep the country. Prostitution and alcohol were criminalized; the NLF (National Liberation Front) forbade music, singing, performing and even parties and weddings. “No one could walk holding a guitar,” another member recalls. The Jews were stripped out of their citizenship right after Algeria's war of independence in the early ‘60s and forced into exile in France where they were subjected to severe discrimination for years and treated as second-rate citizens. The Casbah was later demolished; its residents relocated to other neighborhoods. El Gusto were disbanded by fate, by political forces beyond their control. The Algeria they loved petered out of existence. In a stunning, emotional last act, the Algerian-born architecture student Bousbia — who stumbled upon the story of El Gusto while shopping for a mirror at a store owned by one of El Anka's protégés in 2004 — unites all surviving members for a reunion concert held in Marseille. The last 20 minutes of the film is pure euphoria as members of the band, the majority of whom haven't seen each other in more than 40 years at that point, get the chance to finally perform alongside one another, evoking memories of a place they used to call home. “El Gusto”, an Irish/French/Algerian/Emirate production, is that rare Arab documentary: highly entertaining, informative and visually captivating. There is nearly no false note in the film; its energy is infectious, its look is dazzling, and its sound is overwhelmingly jubilant. By the end of the film, the reserved audience members were tapping their shoes; the uninhibited ones like me were dancing and cheering, relishing in a truly unique experience that will surely remain in our systems for a long time. Iranian separation The one Middle-Eastern narrative feature that put its Arab competitors in the shade this year in Abu Dhabi was Asghar Farhadi's tense domestic drama “A Separation,” the first Iranian winner of the Golden Bear Prize at the Berlin Film Fest. Farhadi's superior follow-up to 2009's “About Elly” opens with in a small courtroom, the camera positioned in place of the judge, a visual and dramatic motif sustained throughout the film, forcing the viewers to assume this role. Simin (Leila Hatami) wants to divorce her husband for refusing to move out of the country. The husband, Naader (Peyman Moaadi), is attached to his Alzheimer's-ridden father whom he can't leave behind. The first scene is an overture to what transpires into a deeply incisive drama about a nation divided by class, religion and culture. The real action kicks in when Naader hires Razieh (Sareh Bayat), a devout maid, to tend to his father. She begins to have religious qualms about her job, having to see Naader's absent-minded father naked. One day, she ties him to bed while fetching something from a nearby place, an act that enrages Naader, propelling him to physically shove her out of his place. Things quickly spiral out of control when Naader discovers that Razieh has had miscarriage as a result. What ensues is an intricate web of secrets, lies, shocking revelation and stern moral decisions. Shot mostly via handheld camera, Farhadi creates a distance between himself and his characters, refusing to advocate any set of ethics or socially-driven messages. In that sense, Farhadi resembles an anthropologist, a man firmly attuned to fundamental schisms between the intellectual and largely secular middle-class (represented by Simin and Naader) and the modestly-educated, religious working class (Razieh and her husband); a separation that has developed into a large fracture whose outcome materialized in the last presidential elections. The basic premise of the story is actually quite simple; the way all the different strands of the story and the various arcs of its characters are developed and weaved into an intense, dramatic pressure-cooker is a testament to Farhadi's genius. “A Separation” — which also won the best male and female acting prizes for its ensemble cast in Berlin — is a landmark in Iranian cinema; a campsite microcosm of present Iran free of any personal judgments, imposed morality or wise lessons. This is a work light years away in its intelligence and perceptiveness from the monthly sermons we receive on our local screens. Westward taboo The standout British pick of the fest was Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay's triumphant comeback vehicle “We Need to Talk about Kevin,” an utterly harrowing, exceedingly unsettling adaptation of Lionel Shriver's best-selling 2003 novel. Tilda Swinton — in her greatest performance to date and the finest of the year — plays Eva, the unloving mother of the titular character (a seductively fiendish Ezra Miller from “Afterschool”), a teenage boy who, as we learn at the beginning of the film, went on a high school killing spree. Disposing of the original source's structure based on Eva's letters to her husband, Ramsay employs her signature elliptic narrative, transforming the pre-massacre story into flashbacks interrupted by scenes from the present. Ramsay maintains Eva's first-person perspective, but without the narration, and thus, the unreliable subjectivity of Eva's account is occasionally threatened by seeming objectivity, which is a natural byproduct of translation to screen. Ramsay offers no psychological explanation for Kevin's wickedness. She hints that Eva's incapability to love her son early on may have been responsible for his antipathy, but she doesn't provide full evidence to back this theory. Some kids, Ramsay suggests, are simply born bad. We get hints of Kevin's vulnerability, emotional retardation and alienation from his mother near the end of the film, but he remains an enigma throughout most parts of the film, created by the imagination of a mother who never possessed the capability to understand her son. Since her breakthrough in 1999 with her debut “Ratcatcher,” “Ramsay has often been referred to as the female Terrance Malick. Her transcending, poetic imageries were perfectly married to her austere studies of working-class solitude and loss. In “Kevin,” Ramsay takes a jolting turn, impregnating her visual poetry with an impressionistic narrative that often borders on horror. There's something quite eerie about the quietness of the film; an apprehensive calmness manifested in the stilted geography of the film (the drab, inexpressive suburban locale) and Eva's position to it (often at the margin of the wide 2.35:1 frame, which gives the film an unexpected epic feel). Red, naturally, is the most fundamental color in Ramsay's palette, acting as the doom bell in scenes such as the Tomatina fest at the very start of the film and the tomato-shelved supermarket in which Eva hides from the victims' families' looks. Ramsay's singular vision and highly daring approach to Shriver's grueling material is what renders “Kevin” among the most accomplished, most original literal adaptations in recent memory. Ramsay breaks one of the last taboos of cinema: a mother's love to her child and the result is nothing short of devastating; a nightmare enormously difficult to shake off. Unbroken scenes At the opposite end of “Kevin's” spectrum was Sam Neave's gentle, bittersweet mumblecore-like romantic comedy “Almost in Love” which had its world debut at the fest's New Horizons section. Neave's sophomore effort is divided into two unbroken 40-minut-long takes. The first is set at New York's Station Island at sunset. The action is restricted in a veranda belonging to a sports writer Sasha (Alex Karpovsky from “Beeswax” and “Tiny Furniture”) hosting a barbeque dinner party for his thirtysomethings, upper middle class friends. Sasha is trying to get back to his ex, Mia (a lovely Marjan Neshat, the co-producer of the film) who has recently broken up with his wild, thoughtless friend Kyle (Gary Wilmes). The second take is set Long Island Beach at sunrise 18 months later. The occasion of the gathering is Sasha's wedding to new flame Faye (Gretchen Hall). Mia is now with a new beau (Alan Cumming) while Kyle, now single, still has feelings for her. On paper, Neave's method — applied more rigorously by Aleksandr Sokurov in “Russian Ark” (2002) and Gustavo Hernández in “The Silent House” (2010), both shot in one single take — might seem gimmicky, but the gamble eventually pays off, instilling the story with an uncommon spontaneity and refreshing naturalism. The initial, distancing intrigue by this technique is quickly offset by the warm ambiance, replaced by an embracing sense of tranquil contentment and piercing melancholy. Neave's follow-up to 2003's “Cry Funny Happy “is one of the American relationship dramas that perfectly capture the complexity and impermanency of relationships in contemporary world. The indecisive characters orbiting his world move in circles, immersing themselves in books, sports, fashion and travel to compensate for their failure to forge long-lasting and meaningful relationships. “Almost in Love” is freewheeling anecdote of love lost, gained and lost again. There's no such thing as ‘the one' in real life. Neave's characters end up with the wrong persons; real love is briefly experienced, taken away by circumstances we may never fathom.
