Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #274: 1982 (2019).

 

The 1982 Lebanon War has just broken out. Schoolteacher Yesmenee (Nadine Labaki) is in charge of a class that includes Wissam (Mohamad Dalli), who's fallen in love with his classmate Joanna (Gia Madi) and doesn't know how to tell her. As he sets about trying to do that, Yesmenee and all her colleagues have to do everything to hide the reality and closeness of the war, and their own concerns about it, from their young charges.

1982, from writer-director and co-producer Oualid Mouaness, was Lebanon's submission for the 2019 Best International Feature Film Oscar and although it wasn't nominated for that, it still makes quite an impression; at least; it did with me. Working a story of childhood innocence around warfare is a risky and challenging prospect as it can lead to either emotional overkill or war and its consequences being trivialised, but here I thought Mouaness, who presumably himself grew up during this conflict, got the balance of sweetness and dramatic heft just right. If you're expecting actual war scenes here, don't. Instead, there's a cute and restrained exploration of puppy love and the resultant anxiety and hesitancy with the Lebanon War more as a backdrop to that, the conflict being more directly explored in Yesmenee's arc. It all culminates in what I found to be an initially confounding but ultimately quite wise and strikingly realised animated climax.

Mouaness applies a very suitably patient approach to his directing and pacing, and his screenplay lets both the child and adult characters talk and behave realistically regarding both their ages and their shared situation. Dalli and Madi make engaging young protagonists, but Labaki proves her versatility (she also directed the brilliant 2018 Lebanese film Capernaum) and gives the best performance here, bringing Yesmenee to life with admirable control and grace. There is no score but I suspect that creative choice was made for restraint, and the cinematography and editing also smartly reflect that. I don't think 1982 is quite in the same league as Grave of the Fireflies or Au Revoir, Les Enfants to name but a few, but for movies about childhood and war it's easily a cut above most others. 8/10.