Skies of Lebanon

Released Jul 22, 2022

1h 32m

Drama

List

90%

10 Reviews

Tomatometer

80%

Fewer than 50 Ratings

Audience Score

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 filmmaker Chloé Mazlo. Using stories told to her by her grandmother of life during the Lebanese Civil War, Mazlo crafts a touching and heart-breaking story of love during wartime.Alba Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro) plays Alice, a Swiss woman who moved to Beirut in the 1950s and falls in love with a Lebanese man. Wajdi Mouawad (author of the play Incendies, which was the source material for Denis Villeneuve's 2010 film) plays Joseph, an astrophysicist with dreams of sending his fellow citizens into space, and the object of Alice's affection. Joseph and Alice appear to lead the perfect life until their bliss is ripped apart by the civil war and nothing will be the same again.

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Ted B

Charming, whimsical and touching. A promising debut feature

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

01/24/23

Full Review

isla s

This is very much an imaginative, quirky drama film, which has the feel of Amelie about it, only its set in Lebanon. The mix of animation and real life settings is interesting, it also has a slight feel of Anomalisa about it but not in the adult/sexual sense, rather in there being a similar use of what I assume to be stop motion type animation at times. I liked the protagonist, the way she escapes the worrying situation her neighbourhood is in, disappearing into daydreams of one form or another. The characters are nice and friendly and it has a good use of colour. There probably is more live action than animation present but I found the mix hypnotic all the same. Its mostly a romantic drama type plot but the war element certainly plays a fair role too, so I wouldn't say its expressly a rom-com or, what? a rom-dram? whatever. Its quirky and suprisingly enjoyable. I tend to avoid war based films at the moment, as I've had enough of overly upsetting films, for the most part but this film is somewhat uplifting and with a cartoon type feel to it, I would recommend it, yes.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

kinda lame tbh got bored not a good movie for when you are bored.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

02/11/23

Full Review

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Chloé Mazlo

Director

Alba Rohrwacher

Alice Kamar

Wajdi Mouawad

Joseph Kamar

Isabelle Zighondi

Mona Kamar

Mariah Tannoury

Mimi

Jade Breidi

Tony

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Claudia Puig

FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)

This is a clever and also moving film.

Aug 5, 2022

Full Review

Glenn Kenny

New York Times

Lebanon is most frequently invoked as a place of ruin and strife, not romance and enchantment. The debut feature from the filmmaker Chloé Mazlo, “Skies of Lebanon,” is, among other things, an intriguing swing of the pendulum of depiction.

Jul 21, 2022

Full Review

Sumner Forbes

Film Threat

Signals the arrival of a creative new voice in Chloé Mazlo. Moreover, it works as a powerful mediation on the optimism lost for a peacefully cosmopolitan Lebanon.

Rated: 7/10

Aug 17, 2022

Full Review

Charles Solomon

FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)

I found the film limp -- that everybody is so nice, and so caring, and so warm and so together that they're not terribly interesting.

Aug 5, 2022

Full Review

Soham Gadre

Film Inquiry

Mazlo’s mixing of animated and live-action creates a dream world that is shaken by the real world and the result is both striking and immensely watchable.

Jul 30, 2022

Full Review

Joanne Laurier

World Socialist Web Site

It is a poetic, imaginative and colorful work that uses stop-motion animation and surrealistic drama to make its point about the irrationality of war and internecine, ethnic conflict.

Jul 26, 2022

Full Review

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Synopsis

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 filmmaker Chloé Mazlo. Using stories told to her by her grandmother of life during the Lebanese Civil War, Mazlo crafts a touching and heart-breaking story of love during wartime.Alba Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro) plays Alice, a Swiss woman who moved to Beirut in the 1950s and falls in love with a Lebanese man. Wajdi Mouawad (author of the play Incendies, which was the source material for Denis Villeneuve's 2010 film) plays Joseph, an astrophysicist with dreams of sending his fellow citizens into space, and the object of Alice's affection. Joseph and Alice appear to lead the perfect life until their bliss is ripped apart by the civil war and nothing will be the same again.

Director: Chloé Mazlo
Screenwriter: Chloé Mazlo, Yacine Badday
Distributor: Dekanalog
Production Co: Arte, Centre National du Cinéma et de L'image Animée, Indéfilms 8, Moulin d'Andé-CECI , arte France Cinéma, Cinémage 14, Moby Dick Films, Canal+, Ciné+
Genre: Drama
Original Language: French (France)
Release Date (Theaters): Jul 22, 2022, Limited
Runtime: 1h 32m

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