Living Happily Ever After?

A Brief Commentary: Chloé Mazlo’s film, “SKIES OF LEBANON”

by John Bennison, Mountain Shadow Director

San Francisco psychiatrist Allen Chinen begins his book, “Once Upon a Midlife,” with this introduction:

“The story is familiar, and from Cinderella to Snow White the plot is similar. The young hero and heroine meet, fall in love, defeat horrible enemies, marry, and then live happily ever after. We hear the tale in childhood, hope it is true in youth, but find out later that the story runs thin. By midlife, it usually runs out.

This is about what happens next, when the Prince goes bald, and the Princess has a midlife crisis … juggling the demands of family and work, grappling with self-doubt and disillusionment, and ultimately finding deep new meaning in life.”

The author’s description is a succinct depiction of Chloé Mazlo’s film, “Skies of Lebanon.”

A Swiss au-pair leaves her home and family, to take a job in Beirut. In a coffee shop she frequents, she meets a university research professor who longs of someday sending someone from Lebanon into outer space. It’s a fairy tale romance, and they live happily ever after …

Oh, but wait. It’s 1975, and the Lebanese civil war is about to erupt; just as the two of them wed, and begin a life together in the real world; raising kids, working to fulfill their dreams and aspirations, and facing the challenges and outside forces that would seek to destroy it all. Interspersed are occasional scenes of a muse-like figure, in a strange green dress that looks like a tree. She first appears when she introduces the new arrival to Beirut. Then she tries to intercede when warring street forces clash; only to be overcome by a skeletal figure in silent dance of death. Ah, she’s meant to represent the national symbol, the cedar tree.

A poetic blending of the personal and political, “Skies of Lebanon” combines live action with animation to create a vivid picture of Lebanon, inspired by the family history of the filmmaker herself. Using stories told to her by her grandmother of life during the Lebanese Civil War, Mazlo crafts an artfully spun, universal story of love in the midst of conflict; and the search for resolution and fulfillment found in something more than a fairy tale romance. jb