Review of Zozo (2005) by Ashraf O — 03 Jun 2007

"Zozo" really got to me; I haven't cried that much at the movies since I saw "Since Otar Left". The movie hit perhaps just too close to home for me. It just threw me back into my childhood, into Beirut during the war.

But what just nailed it was that the director decided to strike hardest as soon as the characters were established, and he just went for the juggular! He took of one of my favorite actresses (Carmen Lobbos, another one of the women that I love because she reminds me of my mother) and established her as this adorable mother, and just blow her up (along with the rest of the family) just as soon as you could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It's like he threw me into the abyss in the first half hour, and so naturally there was no way out except up from there. But that's not to say that it was a very bright prospect. The rest of the movie just trails under their ghost: relentless, heavy, and breathless.

It was a good movie, don't get me wrong, with very effective use of magical realism, something I haven't seem in Lebanese cinema before. But it is just weighted by this loaded ghost; I just thought it was cruel, and harrowing.

I was a bit angry that there are no happy movies about that period of Lebanese history (not that the war is ever happy). But that was my childhood, and it was happy, in its own way. Maybe what bothered me so much is that it was so well-done, which makes it only more effective in its viciousness (or rather depicting the viciousness of the war).

But I was just left gasping for air at every time Carmen Lobbos reappeared or we hear her voice again...