In the Battlefields

Saw this in Seattle this week as part of Seattle Film's Global Lens series. To me this felt like someone's art/film school project. A lot of long drawn out pauses, and pseudo-artistic shots with very little character development. The story was decent enough, with the war in Beirut as a very dim backdrop at best (I was disappointed to not have been drawn into the conflict at all -- there were occasional shots of tanks, and a few scenes filmed in a basement with the sounds of artillery). Had there been a reasonable amount of character development, I might have cared more about what happened in the end. All of the Men in the film seemed to be characterised as selfish and cold, and most of the women seemed helpless (with the exception of the aunt who was an incredibly unlikable tyrant).