Recently released on DVD, ‘Beirut, The Last Home Movie’ is a documentary initially filmed in 1981, set in Beirut, exploring the lives the of the well to-do Boustros family upon the return of the youngest Boustros daughter ‘Gaby’ to Lebanon after 15 years of absence. Though starting off as a depiction of war-ridden Beirut, the film later takes a much more personal turn as it sheds light on the individual members of the Boustros family: the widowed mother and her 4 children who all live in their gorgeous 200 year old mansion, doubling as an oasis in the middle of a desert of destruction. The focus of the film is undoubtedly turned towards the three sisters Mona, Nayla and Gaby: their relationships, lives, delusions and bond to the house. In a ‘Cries and Whispers’ meets ‘The Dreamers’ type of mixture, the sisters never leave the house, lounging around discussing feelings, opinions and introspecting for the most part of the film. As eccentric as they are different, Mona and Nayla still manage to share a husband from whom they’ve each had a child, and with whom they all live, in the very same house their great-grandfather built. Shot with exquisite taste and unassuming ‘cinema vérité’ narration coupled with original music by Ziad Rahbani, the charmingly grainy ‘Beirut The Last Home Movie’ remains an intimate look at the deepest feelings of a generation of elite ‘children’, struggling with the commonness of war.
Diane Farah