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Film Search
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The Insult
Drama
The Insult is well-directed, well-acted, and beautifully filmed. It’s a towering achievement in those respects, and has been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in the upcoming Academy Awards. But it also features two lead characters who are so unlikeable—detestable, really—that to sit through 114 minutes of this movie requires not screaming, “JUST FUCKING APOLOGIZE AND BOTH OF YOU STOP BEING ASSHOLES.” There is a larger forest-for-the-trees argument to be made, which is that anyone with knowledge of Lebanese history—specifically the Damour massacre—will be enthralled. That argument has merit; with context, it’s easy to see how one simple insult—a Palestinian man insults a Lebanese man by calling him a “fucking prick” after a disagreement over a drainage pipe—nearly spirals into full-fledged rioting that ends in a courtroom drama and pleas for peace from the president. Without context, it feels like a Trump supporter and a Clinton supporter are screaming at each other for nearly two hours, albeit with subtitles. I’ve seen enough of that over the last two years. That’s my context.
Official Site: cohenmedia.net/films/theinsult
Director: Ziad Doueiri
Producer: Rachid Bouchareb, Jean Bréhat, Julie Gayet, Antoun Sehnaoui and Nadia Turincev
Cast: Adel Karam, Kamel Basha, Camille Salameh, Diamand Abboud, Rita Hayek, Talal Jurdi, Christine Choueiri, Julia Kassar, Rifaat Torbey and Carlos Chahine
Director: Ziad Doueiri
Producer: Rachid Bouchareb, Jean Bréhat, Julie Gayet, Antoun Sehnaoui and Nadia Turincev
Cast: Adel Karam, Kamel Basha, Camille Salameh, Diamand Abboud, Rita Hayek, Talal Jurdi, Christine Choueiri, Julia Kassar, Rifaat Torbey and Carlos Chahine
