Hors la vie (1991)

Hors la vie: Directed by Maroun Bagdadi. With Hippolyte Girardot, Rafik Ali Ahmad, Hussein Sbeity, Habib Hammoud. A French photograher is kidnapped and held hostage in a war-torn Beirut. Slowly but surely his integrity and self-respect is broken.

“The first 15 minutes is some of the best modern warfare footage Iu0026#39;ve seen, expertly showing the insanity of the war in Lebanon. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWe follow a French photographer as he documents a war in which everyone is turning on everyone. Then the photographer is kidnapped, and we spend most of the film watching the horrors of life as a hostage. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eScene by scene itu0026#39;s beautifully done. His captors are a very varied bunch, some sympathetic, some psychotic, although we never get to really know any of them, and they do fall into u0026#39;typesu0026#39; a bit.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMy biggest problem with the film was the lack of a bigger political context. Unlike, for example, u0026#39;Four Days in Septemberu0026#39;, we never really understand what the captors want. For a while that Kafka-esque confusion is interesting, but by the end, it makes the film seem a bit limited in vision. The captors almost all seemed childlike, and not very bright. There was a touch of what almost felt like racism, very odd, considering the film-maker is himself Lebanese. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn the end, this was tense and exciting as a docudrama (it was based on a real case), but by not having more scope, just missed the chance to be a truly great film.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThat said, itu0026#39;s well worth seeing, and I intend to re-visit it.”