Movie review: Masterful courtroom drama The Insult highlights everyday turmoil of Middle East

BOTH methodical and maddening, the unconventional courtroom drama The Insult serves as an apt metaphor for life along the fault lines of religious, cultural and personal conflict in the Middle East.

BOTH methodical and maddening, the unconventional courtroom drama The Insult serves as an apt metaphor for life along the fault lines of religious, cultural and personal conflict in the Middle East.

There are times where you can easily step over them. At other times, you can figure out a way to navigate around them. However, sooner or later, one of these metaphorical cracks in the ground will open up and try to swallow you whole.

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Scene from The Insult Kamel El Basha

So it goes one ordinary afternoon in modern-day Beirut, where a dripping drainpipe sets off an escalating clash of wills between two seemingly reasonable men.

Tony (Adel Karam) is a Lebanese Christian. Yasser (Kamel El Basha) is a Palestinian refugee.

In this part of the world, these two were never going to get along. Nevertheless, as their one-on-one battle goes from verbal to physical to legal, it becomes clear Tony and Yasser have more in common than they know: a mutual desire to save face above all else. Even it means losing everything.

Scene from The Insult Adel Karam

As for the insult telegraphed by the title — an outburst from Tony that Yasser responds to with his fists — let’s just say it is only a minor piece of a major puzzle that aggravates so many ordinary citizens in every corner of the Middle East.

A Best Foreign Language Film nominee at the last Oscars, and on the evidence put forward here, most unlucky to lose.

THE INSULT (M)

Rating: Four stars (4 out of 5)

Director: Zlad Doueiri (The Attack)

Starring: Adel Karam, Kamel El Basha, Rita Hayek.

Divided, they will fall … together

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Originally published as Movie review: Masterful courtroom drama The Insult highlights everyday turmoil of Middle East