Beirut: The Last Home Movie

Last year's fighting between Israel and Hezbollah brought fresh havoc to Lebanon, a country that is no stranger to strife, as viewers will discover watching Jennifer Fox's 1988 documentary Beirut: The Last Home Movie, which takes a personal look at the factional warfare of two decades ago, when the titular Lebanese capital was bombed on a massive scale. The focus here is on the relatively wealthy Bustros family, whose daughter Gaby returns home after 15 years abroad to visit her widowed mother, two older sisters, and younger brother. Although Gaby initially hopes to persuade her relatives to evacuate, she instead joins the family in trying to preserve their traditional mode of life, despite the occasional shelling that sends them and their neighbors into relatively safe inner rooms to watch television, play cards, or listen to records—making the best of what would appear to most viewers as an intolerable situation. Capturing conversations, as well as footage of gatherings with friends and trips outside the compound, Fox fashions a sort of family history while portraying the stresses and strains that naturally occur between parents and children, ending with a wedding sequence for Gaby's brother that suggests no matter how bad the situation becomes, life still goes on. While Beirut: The Last Home Movie is a somewhat meandering film with on-location audio that isn't always clear, this is still an evocative portrait of a particular time and place. DVD extras include an hour-long 2006 discussion with Fox on the making of the film. Recommended, overall. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)