Wind From the Mideast (Page 3)

An astonishing film--and, of course, a banned one. Bootleg copies make their way to anyone in Syria who really wants to see it; but the uncomfortable fact remains that this polemic about the Baath country plays mostly to people who don't live there.

So two objections arise. The first may be summed up in the words of an Arab journalist, as quoted in a recent New Yorker article by Lawrence Wright: "The films get awards abroad, which is good P.R. for the regime." This is the argument you used to hear against "daring" Soviet bloc films that went unseen at home but were praised at international festivals, the complaint you still hear against the Iranian art cinema. The best answer takes the form of a question: Would it be better if the filmmakers just went along quietly?

The second, contrary objection came up at the Lincoln Center panel discussion, when a member of the audience rose to denounce Richard Peña, the Film Society's program director. Peña had worked on and off for ten years to organize "The Road to Damascus." He had also said in a recent newspaper interview that Syria's filmmakers expose the failure of Arab regimes--words that were cited, to the speaker's particular outrage, in The Jewish Week. Here was proof that these filmmakers are tools, used to demonize the entire Arab people.

The best answer to this objection came from Amiralay: "When intellectuals in despotic societies manage, with great difficulty, to make an act of resistance, they are surprised to hear intellectuals beyond their borders say, 'You are playing into the hands of the imperialists.' I find it absolutely shameful for this pseudo-left, pseudo-Islamist orchestra to be complicit in the crimes committed by these regimes against their own people. Anytime I hear this, I'm mad enough to spit."

Rather than complain about these tough-minded, visionary, extraordinarily principled film artists, you might want instead to give them a small gesture of support. "The Road to Damascus: Discovering Syrian Cinema" has completed its run in New York, but it will soon travel to venues including the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and the Northwest Film Center in Portland, Oregon. A complete tour schedule is posted at www.arteeast.org.

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