Ziad Doueiri's THE INSULT opens, shortlisted for this year's Best Foreign Language Film

When Ziad Doueiri's The Attack hit theaters back in 2013, TrustMovies was impressed with everything about that film, from its concept and complexity to its execution and disquieting semi-resolution. Now comes this Lebanese filmmaker's latest and, if possible, even more impressive work, THE INSULT, which has already been shortlisted for this year's Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film. Along with The Square it is up there with the best I've seen for this past year. And it is also perhaps the most important.

What Mr. Doueiri, who directed and co-wrote (along with Joelle Touma) has to say goes to the heart of so much that is going on throughout our world today. Instead of moralizing, this supremely talented and generous filmmaker concocts an incident that sets individuals, a community and finally a small country on their ear and in the process explores the situation from angle after angle until we understand more than we ever imagined we might about the participants. (And they, praise be, have begun to better understand, in maybe the smallest of increments, each other and themselves.)

The Attack was set mostly in Israel and put us into the experience of a highly successful Arab-Israeli doctor who suddenly learns that his wife has killed herself, along with a number of others, in a suicide bombing. How he and his Israeli friends and co-workers respond to this is as complicated and often unnerving as you might guess.

Now, in The Insult, Doueiri returns to Lebanon and pits a Lebanese Christian (Adel Karam, above, left) against a Muslim Palestinian (Kamel El Basha, above, right) who, along with his wife, has taken refuge (as have so many other Palestinians) in Lebanon. The filmmaker's canvas opens up to explore Lebanese society and culture in ways and from angles that I doubt most of us have come anywhere close to previously seeing. It is eye-opening, to say the least.

The workplace, the justice system, family matters, history and much more is given us in a tightly-woven plot that avoids melodrama but manages to stay sharp and on course throughout. Most wonderfully, there are no villains here. Oh, you may imagine there are and perhaps feel quite some hatred for certain of the characters. But wait.

The great blessing Doueiri bestows upon us is to allow us to finally understand what his characters have experienced, while allowing them to do this, too. Don't worry. There are no huge "breakthroughs" or eureka! moments here. Yet the filmmaker's steady accretion of small, incremental information builds beautifully and believably to completion.

How Israel -- so often the main agenda but here seen sidelong -- plays into all of this is particularly unusual and gratifying. Like so much else that Doueiri manages, Israel, too, becomes something we must view in a different light.

I am obviously leaving out almost all reference to plot here because the manner in which the filmmaker gives this to us is simply too good -- too nuanced and surprising -- to ruin for you. Do yourself a favor and go see The Insult as soon as you're able -- and before you've read much more about it.

From Cohen Media Group, the movie -- in Arabic with English subtitles and running 112 minutes -- opens this Friday, January 12, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and The Quad, and in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal. Elsewhere? Hope so, but I can't find any further playdates on the Cohen web site for the film.

Ziad Doueiri's THE ATTACK--one of the best of the Israel/Palestine films--opens

If The Other Son remains one of the most hopeful of the movies about Israel and "Palestine" (and, yes, I hope those quotes can someday be removed), THE ATTACK -- the new film directed and co-adapted (with Joelle Touma) by Ziad Doueiri from the novel by male writer Yasmina Khadra (for a very interesting short biography, click on his/her link!) -- is one of the least hopeful. Yet it is also one of the best films I have ever seen about this ongoing conflict because it takes the stuff we already know -- or assume we know -- turns it inside out and peppers it with surprise and shock and and then tears right into everything we think we, as decent human beings, hold sacred, forcing us to work it all through and come out the other side into... what? Oh, shit. This is one difficult, terrific movie.

Its leading character, Amin (Ali Suliman, above, of Paradise Now, Lemon Tree and The Time That Remains), is a successful (and now, the evening on which that the film opens, an award-winning) Palestinian doctor, trained and practicing in Israel, which is the home of him and his wife. The next day a terrorist attack occurs, and from here on in, everything changes in ways both predictable and definitely not so. The film calls into question, in a manner so strong and intense that it wipes the floor with most other movies on similar subjects, everything from identity and trust to guilt and justice, then asks us to reassess that person with whom we share our life, bed and love. If all this does not supersede questions of location and territory, well, then, screw you.

Mr. Doueiri, shown at right, has overseen the film in a way that, according to a compatriot who has also read the original novel, clarifies certain points and events without needless telescoping or elision, bringing everything home to roost in a way in which our protagonist (and thus we) are faced with the deepest questions concerning just where our identity lies. (This week we have two films opening that achieve this difficult task, both of them quite well: The Attack and the recently covered Three Worlds.) The fact that Amin is a very good doctor further complicates the situation, so far as his Israeli co-workers and friends are concerned. How they react provides yet another touchstone in our protagonist's journey toward understanding.

The Attack connects interestingly to other recent films set in this location. Our hero, in fact, could be an older version of that young Palestinian student in A Bottle in the Gaza Sea, or even the doctor that one of The Other Sons hopes to become. Yet this film takes us further into the heart and mystery of motive and identity, in a way that is less facile, for it finally confronts the question of what it is like to live among "them," when, until now, we've been one of "us."

This movie certainly does not make Israel look good, but as it was filmed there (and evidently, according to its director, because it does not demonize Israel), it has now been banned in the Arab nations. Idiots all (and I would have to include Israel's current policies in those two words). As much as The Other Son points toward reconciliation, this movie takes us closer to Armageddon. And yet so well made and honest is it that I think you 'll be willing to follow along. On a personal level, the finale is as specific and powerful as you could possibly wish. As usual, art wins out -- but among the powerful, few, if any, see or understand.

The Attack -- from Cohen Media Group and running 102 minutes -- opens today, June 21, in New York City at both the Angelika Film Center and the Beekman Theater. On June 28 it will open in the Los Angeles area at Laemmles' Royal, Town Center 5 and Playhouse 7 -- and elsewhere.