The Insult, by the Lebanese director, Ziad Doueiri, is like a lesson about dignity and humanity.

Cinema

The Insult... the latest movie by the Lebanese director, Ziad Doueiri, that has been nominated for the the Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Films category, opens in San Francisco and the Bay Area on January 26, 2018.

The story briefly...

In today’s Beirut, a civilian dispute blown out of proportion finds Toni, a Lebanese Christian, and Yasser , a Palestinian refugee, facing off in court. As the media circus surrounding the case threatens a social explosion in divided Lebanon, Toni and Yasser reconsider their values and beliefs as revelations of trauma complicate their understanding of one another.

The Insult is one of those movies you can't get out of your mind for days after you have watched them. You can't help but thinking of the story, its characters, about what you learned...

Ziad Doueiri is going straight to the point and is almost taking us by surprise. An apparently insignificant incident takes place. We witness it, we can confirm it was almost nothing. Nevertheless, everything is going wrong. and it turns into an insane chaos.

Ziad Doueiri's intention was to make a movie about dignity, about appreciation, forgiveness and justice. He reached his goal and offers a movie sounding like a lesson we should all take into consideration.

Everything seems out of control. And yet, the 2 main protagonists are both fair, decent, respectacle persons. They will confront each other, and stick to it as if their own life depended on it. They face the consequences, realize they go way beyond what they expected and wanted, and still, they persevere, neglecting the voices around them, begging them to calm down and find peaceful solutions.

All the characters are important for the story and our 2 main ones play an impressive duo. We like each of them, Toni and Yasser, because they are just like us, reasonable persons who all of a sudden let themselves be dragged in a inextricable situation. They triggered it but they also have the keys to sort it out. They will find them by being themselves and finally accepting to grant attention to each other beyond prejudice and preconceptions.

Most of the story takes place in court. That reinforces the antagonisms, detailed by both lawyers.

In the end, the main strength of the movie could possibly be this mix of seriousness and sometimes casualness, a mix that makes the characters so human and sincere.

A movie to watch, to share and think about.