The Insult

In "The Insult,” Lebanon-born writer/director Zia Doueiri takes on a tough social issue in mid-eastern life - the role of honor - and how it limits options to resolve long-standing conflicts. But wrapped into the story is a sharp social/political critique that got the film banned in most Muslim countries.

The storyline involves a Christian auto garage owner who accidently spills water from his second-story apartment onto a Palestinian construction worker. Insults are exchanged. In spite of their spouse's efforts at resolution, both refuse to back down. Rather, the tension escalates. The case finally ends up in court. The legal verdict does little to resolve the underlying tension that brought on the conflict in the first place.

In the meantime, we get an education in Lebanese politics. "Christian" in this film refers not to faith, but to the Christian political party. In an interview conducted after the release of the film, Doueiri says his hope was to show that the idea of Arab unity promoted under Gamal Nasser is dead, but the aspiration lives on in the minds of the older generation. Meanwhile, the younger generations have moved on. This disconnect forms a parallel backdrop to the more immediate story of dishonored honor.

As the two protagonists battle it out in court and in their every-day lives, a strong sense of "otherness" emerges. The proposition that one can "live and let live" is simply an impossibility. Life is divided into tribes composed of bloodlines, ethnic identities, religious affiliations and even age differences. The resulting identities don't mix well.

The film intimates that reconciliation with the "other" is long overdue; that it is time to embrace a new vision of society where honor is not so easily wounded. But don't hold your breath that this film will make a big difference; while it played to packed houses at theaters in Christian neighborhoods, Arab communities boycotted the film.

Why?

Apparently, according to the director, it dared to suggest that violence on either side of a dispute causes victims. And one side in the larger dispute remains deaf to this reality.