On the issue that Jackie Chan is producing a film in Syria

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Lately, news transpired that (honorary Oscar winner) Jackie Chan is shooting a film in war-torn Syria.

Now everyone is up in arms about it.

To begin with the film is called "The Home Operation" and is about how China evacuated its nationals from Yemen in 2015. The director of the film, Song Xinyi said: "It takes the perspective of diplomats who are Communist party members, who braved a hail of bullets in a war-torn country and safely brought all Chinese compatriots on to the country’s warship unscathed.”

The film is being shot in Hajar Al Aswad - a place in Syria where in 2012 the Free Syrian Army took hold, then in 2015 the area was under the Islamic State, before being captured by government forces in 2018. Suffice to say, that the fact that China backed Bashar Al-Assad in the Syrian conflict already has everyone very mad.

Now of course, the idea of locals dressed as Yemenis, while the surrounding sets are composed of war-torn buildings, makes people queasy - without factoring the political implications (I do wonder at times, if anyone contributed to producing any film where locals are used as props - hell, this has been a mainstay in anything related to Lebanon and marketed outside of it - see here).

Let's go back a little though: To (some examples of) films produced in war-torn Lebanon. Anything from the brilliant "Beyrouth, jamais plus" (written by the late Etel Adnan, directed by also the late Jocelyne Saab), going on to the oeuvre of the late Maroun Baghdadi (Beyrouth ya Beyrouth, or - I know this is an unpopular opinion - the underwhelming Little Wars (Houroub Saghira) to the wonderful Hamasat (written and recited by Nadia Tueni)), and landing eventually to West Beirut Ziad Doueiri (which caught the post-war Beirut to shoot a film about a war-era Beirut).

Fine, I will already anticipate the criticism that these are films done by "Lebanese" directors (even if many of them built their careers outside Lebanon). So the "opportunistic" element might be missing as in the case of Chan/Syria. As a side note, and interestingly the film "Beirut" (released in 2018) was actually shot in Tangiers in Morocco (and, go figure, was criticized heavily for not looking like its namesake city).

So let me tell you about the 1981 exceptional "Circle of Deceit" by the German director Volker Schlöndorff. I shall let you read about the plot of the film here. I saw the film at a festival in Beirut and was fresh out of my army military service (therefore it must have been 1998), and its climatic ending was obvious for me for the said reason. But this did not detract from the use of Beirut and its war-porn imagery (which leads to the said ending).

Look, if you are going to say that Circle of Deceit is "unethical" for using Beirut during the war to question the ethics of its main protagonist, then we - seriously - have a lot to discuss. The film is a delight to be honest.

But here we go - again, another unpopular opinion - for production purposes, having a ready-set background of a destroyed city in a film that includes a destroyed city is budget-cutting heaven. 

From what I hear, the inhabitants of Talooine (yes, that's from Star Wars) are having issues about their city being shot in Tunisia at the time. 

Har har.

Or wait, that was Jar Jar (sorry :) )... 

Elections 2022: And my vote goes to...

My vote, tomorrow - artwork by Tarek Chemaly

So after covering the elections' ads, on as much coverage as I can by tracking social media, taking photos from billboards, screen shooting whatever comes on instagram, being nudged here and there by friends and the list continues.... You want to ask: Who am I voting for?

I know the answer seems shocking.

I am not voting.

Yes, I heard it all already - I am a defeatist, every vote counts, I am being bribed, I am in the gutter and happy to remain here, voting is a moral stance, candidates are not like marriage they're just like public transport, etc....

Still, I am not voting.

Interestingly, whatever YOU stand is fine by me. You want the old bunch to come back? Good for you. You want some of those new "revolutionary" picks? Go vote for them. You no longer want to be stolen by the old bunch but want the new bunch to steal you? Again, go for it. I seriously suspended all judgement. 

However, I feel the system to be so inherently broken, as in irremediably broken, voting will not bring any change no matter who gets voted. Which makes my own vote an act of hypocrisy. Not only do I not find credible candidates, but the whole electoral law, the whole social setting, the whole political ambiance makes absolutely no sense at this point.

People said, go and put a blank vote, since you don't like any candidate. No, it's not just the candidates, it's the whole system. A blank vote means I agree with the system. I don't.

Several politicians are running ads (which I will not publish for personal reasons) whereby "voting for them will bring your money back". As in - seriously? We know the money in the bank is no longer returning, we know that the whole political class evaporated all chances of Lebanon being credible in the eyes of the international community. Add to it the crisis of Ukraine where all eyes have gone, and bingo - we are not hot on anyone's list.

Long story short, I am home tomorrow. And no, I am not voting.

Sohat awkwardly misquotes Nietzsche

Here's the original quote: "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

If ever there was an ominous philosophical warning, this would be it.

Sohat, our local mineral water brand, oddly thought that misquoting it actually makes it more palatable (not sure if this is a pun or not!). "When we stare into the colourful abyss, the colourful abyss stares back" - this reminds me of the iconic smile of Jack Nicholson in The Shining (deranged, demented, and you know he is out for the kill) - especially the "here's Johnny" scene, where it is still a "smile" but a threatening one to put it mildly. To be honest, it spooks me about who comes up, then who approves such things as they make me uncomfortable (especially that the quasi-totality of the masses have no clue this is a misquoted Nietzsche saying).

As I said, this could easily be one of the most disturbing moralistic quotes in the history of moral lessons (and trust me, I took the ethics course at university and I have seen some pretty spooky ones!). I am not sure diluting it with the word "colourful" makes it work.

Why I haven't said anything about Palestine.

With the whole world up in arms about Palestine (no need to link anything, you can just read it anywhere), I have been totally silent about the issue. Why? You might ask. Well, for a long time I have been the proponent of the idea that tags and social media do not solve much (remember how effective #bringourgirlsback campaign was? Not much actually). You know it is easy to post on Facebook between zoom meetings or whatsapp discussions about this or that, and flood social media with sentiments: But apart from the feeling that you have cleaned your conscience and engaged in an act of slacktivism, tell me - what else did you do?

All right,  I can see your point already: You are running a blog, supposedly for the betterment of the advertising industry, so how does that differ? It differs that for 15 years I taught at master's level at universities, worked on future generations of advertisers, was very harsh when it came to ethics, tried to instill in them - not just methods of creativity - but also deep entrenched values. It also means that advertisers (and here I know how little that effect can be in real life) were less enthusiastic to copy (read that steal) other people's ideas knowing they will get caught and exposed and ridiculed (usually this is under "compare and contrast" on this blog).

Oh, and last week, mother had a health scare. The kind of health scare that in the past would lead her to a hospital stay. She was adamant she did not want to go. So the Chemaly boys worked hand in hand to stabilize the situation. And it worked. But of course me being the resident of the house, there was extra duties to perform and things to do. So all this was time consuming, and me being me, I had to remain calm and steady and ever-efficient. So honestly this was priority over an issue (i.e. Palestine) I had no control or influence on.

I do care about what is happening there, but also am trying not to be a hypocrite and just do things which are ethically pseudo-meaningless.