Film in the Middle East and North Africa: Creative Dissidence ed. by Josef Gugler (review)

This is a much-welcomed addition to the study of cinema in the Middle East and North Africa. Yet, the volume does more than this, as it also offers important lessons for scholars of national, regional, and world cinema in general. Although the volume explores films from many different countries, the editor, Josef Gugler, identifies common themes that run through most of them. In particular, the book consistently emphasizes films that were either screened at Western film festivals, or could have been screened at such international venues. However, as the contributors hail from different disciplines, the essays in the volume can be read to satisfy various interests, and some could also be used in undergraduate-level courses on world cinema, area studies, and culture studies. The volume is divided into nine parts, dedicated to nine national cinemas. Each consists of one essay and several case studies (or only one, in the cases of Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco), and in-depth analyses of exemplary films.

The first chapter, on the cinema of Iran, opens with an essay by Eric Egan, “Regime Critics Confront Censorship in Iranian Cinema.” The essay introduces the cinema of Iran in light of various legal restrictions, from its inception to the 21^st century. Egan demonstrates how cinema culture has responded to political changes, different censorship rules, and governmental obstruction. Most importantly, however, he also discusses issues bound up with production, domestic distribution, and even exhibition of non-Iranian films in the country. While some attention is also given to popular Iranian films unknown in the West, it is scant. For example, Egon mentions the critical work of the “genre-oriented engagé films of the late 1990s,” (47) only in passing.

In the second chapter, which opens with the essay, “Tolerated Parodies of Politics in Syrian Cinema,” Lisa Wedeen looks at a lesser-known national cinema. She too describes various censorship mechanisms in detail and how several films responded to them throughout the history of filmmaking in Syria. However, unlike the first essay, which shows a broad spectrum of films responding to political conditions, the scope of this essay is limited to films that promote political agendas. Syrian films that are significant in other ways go unmentioned. The essay also fails to indicate the types of films screened in Syria, and although Wedeen does mention the existence of film clubs, she reveals too little about what is watched in these clubs and other theaters throughout the country. Moreover, there is too little discussion in this essay of the cinematic qualities of the films, with the single exception being a laconic remark about films portraying beautiful yet “boring” landscapes (107).

The third chapter is dedicated to the cinema of Lebanon, and it begins with an essay titled, “Lebanese Cinema and the Representation of War,” by Lina Khatib. Like the first two essays, Khatib too touches on censorship. Yet, as the title suggests, she focuses on the depiction of war or armed conflict in Lebanon. She then expands the discussion to deal with funding and representations of masculinity. As with the essay on Syrian cinema, Khatib offers no discussion of spectatorship. This is particularly telling in Khatib’s last paragraph, where she mentions the audience for the first time, noting that the “Lebanese audience is relearning to accept watching Lebanese films” (144). Only one critical assessment of a Lebanese film, In the Shadow of the City (Chamoun, 2000), follows this essay, but this case study by Edward Gibeau is detailed and insightful. Lebanon is a small country, but the introduction of the volume indicates that Lebanon has one of the longest-running film histories of all the countries it deals with, so it perhaps deserves greater attention than it is given here.

The fourth chapter begins with the essay, “Israeli Cinema Engaging the Conflict,” by Nurith Gertz and Yael Munk. The authors focus on films that deal with the politics of the...