Theeb | Little White Lies

Theeb

14 Aug 2015 / Released: 14 Aug 2015

Two men in light-coloured clothing crouching on a rocky, arid landscape with mountains in the background.
Two men in light-coloured clothing crouching on a rocky, arid landscape with mountains in the background.
4

Anticipation.

Winner of the Orizzonti Award for Best Director.

4

Enjoyment.

An austere, often beautiful movie.

4

In Retrospect.

A rare film told from a subaltern perspective, which treats all its characters with respect and empathy.

A sub­tle and nuanced range west­ern set in the Mid­dle East dur­ing the late Ottoman period.

In the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, the word that many Ottoman elites used as short­hand for back­ward­ness and lack of progress was bede­viyel’. Trans­lat­ed, the word was also used to describe the lifestyle of Bedouin Arabs.

Theeb (Jacir Eid Al-Hwi­etat), the boy at the cen­tre of the film, is a mem­ber of a Bedouin tribe that lives on the out­skirts of the Ottoman Empire. He spends the day mess­ing around with his old­er broth­er, Hus­sein (Hus­sein Salameh Al-Sweil­hiy­een), and in the evenings he watch­es the grown-ups play board games. The year is 1916, but the war has not reached their cor­ner of the desert. That is until an Eng­lish­man (Jack Fox) arrives and Hus­sein has to guide him and his com­pan­ion towards a well some­where on the way to Mec­ca. Refus­ing to stay behind, Theeb fol­lows them, and inad­ver­tent­ly becomes part of a strug­gle between two empires.

The themes that Theeb explores are the clash­es between moder­ni­ty and decay, broth­er­hood and lega­cy, inno­cence and sur­vival. There is lit­tle expo­si­tion about the colo­nial strug­gle, not that it is need­ed. From Theeb’s point of view, the impend­ing march of moder­ni­ty and what it means is too com­plex to under­stand, irrel­e­vant even. He is not a pre­co­cious or par­tic­u­lar­ly wise child. Most of the time he is surly. He can’t stay still or fol­low instruc­tions. He learns the adults’ secrets through snip­pets of dia­logue, or when his curios­i­ty gets the bet­ter of him. He doesn’t under­stand what is hap­pen­ing but he sees the con­se­quences, and he learns. For those at the cen­tre of his­toric events, life is dis­ori­en­tat­ing and brutal.

The motifs that are used to sym­bol­ise change are sim­ple and effec­tive. The Ottomans and the Eng­lish­man shave, the Bedouins do not. When the Eng­lish­man arrives, he offers the head of the tribe a cig­a­rette. Bring him a fire’, some­one says. He already has one’, the Englishman’s guide answers, point­ing at the lighter.

There is no trea­tise on the dif­fer­ences between the cul­tures; atti­tudes and cus­toms are sim­ply con­trast­ed. Even though the Eng­lish­man arrives with his guide in the dark of the night, the Bedouins feel bound by cus­tom: We have a guest. He is wel­come’. Theeb, Hus­sein, The Eng­lish­man, his guide are all embod­ied with lit­tle char­ac­ter moments that pre­vent them from turn­ing into stereo­types. They are all caught in a web of duties and cir­cum­stances, long­ing to return home.

His­to­ri­ans have often described the Mid­dle East of the late Ottoman peri­od as a fron­tier econ­o­my’ and the movie has the feel and look of a west­ern. There is the rail­road, two steel beams out of place in the desert, out­laws, and shootouts in the canyon. Peo­ple live by a code, and those who break it face fron­tier jus­tice. All of this takes place in sur­round­ings that beg con­tem­pla­tion about life’s big­ger ques­tions (Jor­dan is again a stand-in for its neigh­bours, this time Sau­di Ara­bia). Theeb jour­neys out­side his tribe and learns about the world that awaits him. The first thing he finds out is that it is cruel.

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