IFFR 2020 - Jeedar el sot (All This Victory)
IFFR
Ahmad Ghossein's All This Victory is an impressive, albeit unsatisfying, effort at making a one-room drama with the backdrop of the 2006 Lebanon war.
Budgetary issues play a substantial role in the immersion of this feature. Despite the simplicity of its premise, there are a lot of visual and sound designs that require more sustenance to bring the narrative and character emotions to their fullest potential. This is further evident by how the audio effects present in the feature have a tendency to show their separate existence to the visual footage they are bound.
A scene involving a house shaking due to reverberating impact from a nearby bomb drop seems pretty unconvincing in both its visual shock and thematical horror, due to how the shaking house and the dust falling from its seems noticeably unreal – exposing the stock nature of the audio use. The blame is not solely on the visuals here, as there is a clear over-expectation by Ghossein of his audio effects covering up for the visual shortcomings, so much so that sometimes the audio cue seems to come into existence before their visual context.
That being said, not every use of the audio effect is unconvincing. The more subtle and straightforward usage of audio, used for hinting at soldiers on the floor above, does attain the goal at providing tension and suspense. It is the more significant impacts, like bomb drops and aircraft flying, that seems way out of their visual requirements.
The cinematography by Shadi Chaaban does accomplish what it can — again, given its budget — to its fullest potential. Though failing to provide a suitable colour palette or contextual blocking to the intended narrative, All This Victory does manage to capture the character reactions in a suitable way of engagement. From time to time, the cinematography is able to achieve its intended claustrophobic effect but for the majority of the runtime, it remains more simple.
What the film lacks in the technical department is made up for it in its narrative and brilliant acting performances. The narrative is the one that does the heaviest lifting. Three dimensional in regards to both its characters and storylines, the story in its structural form is almost hard to find fault. The only fault that could possibly be counted are the few immersion-breaking moments when the film decides to show aspects outside its core setting. Apart from such minor inconsistencies, the story is very much spell-binding from start to finish and has a delicate balance between subtle and expository moments.
The acting by the majority of the cast is exceptionally able and talented, ultimately selling the audience on their characters to the point where determining the difference between what is acting and what is real becomes challenging. The major of these is Adel Chahine and Boutros Rouhana, who are astonishingly convincing as the bickering duo that lives under the house — capturing every nuance and aspect of their characters with the utmost understanding. Other actors – like Karam Ghossein, Marwan, Issam Bou and Saha Minkara – also show a great understanding of their respective characters and provide revealing emotions and subtext through their expressions and eye movement.
Despite the brilliance in its creative efforts, the lack of the right tools and talent for the technical aspects does All This Victory more harm than good. That being said, there is considerable potential hiding behind its budgetary restrictions.