HALAL LOVE

Lebanon/ Germany, 2015, 94 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Assad Fouladkar.

This is a comedy drama about rather ordinary people in Beirut. The film has German financing but is filmed in Lebanon and in Arabic.

The film focuses on sexual issues and tries to look at them in the light of Muslim law and traditions. It opens with a rather bumptious teacher asking little girls whether they understood where children came from and then giving an odd explanation about a worm issuing from a man and going into a woman – which bewilders the little girls who chatter about this, wonder about their parents, wonder whether they could become pregnant and use plastic bags as preventative.

Then there is the story about their parents, happily married, The mother, however, is tired from work and resists amorous advances from her husband. She even suggests he have a second wife and goes to a family to find one.

Her neighbours are a squabbling couple, she loving the husband but he subject to fits of jealous rage, acted out for all the neighbours to watch.

And there is a divorcee who plans to go to Australia where her brother is living but who reignites an affair with a former lover who is now married with children.

Nothing startling nor particularly new, but an audience-friendly look at these Lebanese and the Muslim traditions.

1. The title, Lebanese setting, Muslim law and its interpretation?

2. The city of Beirut, cross-section, city sequences and views, homes, school? The musical score?

3. The introduction to the theme, the girls in class, the teacher, questions about making children, the children’s ignorance, the story of the worm from the man entering the woman?

4. The girls, their teacher, her manner in class, their ignorance, their imagination, going home, watching their parents, wondering whether they would be pregnant, using the bags, their chatter? The relationship with their parents? At the wharf, fishing, seeing the worms – and giggling?

5. The girl’s parents, their love for each other, age, middle age, work, the mother being tied, the husband and his sexual requests, his request for his wife to sing, her enthusiasm? The wife continually tired, the housework, bringing up the children, suggesting the second wife? The husband not wanting one? The wife visiting the family, selecting the woman, her arrival, helping with the cooking, with the children? The law, wives? Sexual issues? The first wife coping? The second wife and her experience, shut out, the husband and wife and children singing and dancing?

6. The quarrelling neighbours, the dispute in public, divorce with a three times rejection? The husband and his rages, the wife and her love, making up? Going to the bank for the loan, the teller addressing the wife, the husband and his angry reaction? Accosting the teller, being ousted? The wife separating? His plea? Going to the apartment, finding the teller – and punching him?

7. The woman who was divorced, her past, the relationship with her friend, his being married with children, the affair? Hopes? At the restaurant, the dinner, being seen? The phone calls? The break, the woman and her brother in Australia, the man and his being left behind?

8. Contemporary stories, the halal tone?