Film review: I Want To See

Published on Thursday 26 November 2009 19:40

I WANT TO SEE (12A) ** DIRECTED BY: KHALIL JOREIGE, JOANA HADJITHOMAS STARRING: CATHERINE DENEUVE, RABIH MROUÉ

CATHERINE Deneuve plays a version of herself in this semi-improvised, semi-fictional story about her visit to war-torn Beirut to witness the aftermath of the 2006 Israeli incursion into Lebanon. The conceit of the film, which is the brainchild of directors Khalil Joreige and Joana Hadjithomas, is that Deneuve is about to star in a movie about Lebanon, so she has decided to use her celebrity status to "see", first-hand, the devastation. That means for 75 minutes we get to join her as she's driven around Beirut's bomb-blasted back alleys and the landmine-strewn countryside of southern Lebanon. Along the way she strikes up a tentative friendship with her chauffeur, Lebanese actor Rabih Mrou, who reluctantly drives her to the village in which he grew up and which has now effectively been reduced to a pile of rubble. Recalling the experimental cinematic essays of Jean-Luc Godard, I Want to See is an attempt to get at a truth that reportage misses. Alas, it succeeds only in definitively answering the following question: what can movie stars tell us about the complexities of the world that trained, knowledgeable journalists can't? Absolutely nothing.