Avis des critiques

Shooting in humble but resourcesful fashion, Fahdel (who also produced, edited and recorded the sound) imagines an untouched idyll where innocence is a virtue and the cruelties of the world lie somewhere beyond the frame, turning the film’s very slightness into a gesture of strength and goodwill.

The narrative might seem cliché, but Fahdel uses this fictional arrangement to present us with the reality of the people that live there, to show us the abandoned houses (ravaged by time and conflict), as well as using it as a point to present a more telling relationship between men and women, especially in the world portrayed there.

Iraqi director Fahdel’s fifth feature is a gentle film, a whole other world away from his 2015 documentary Homeland (Iraq Year Zero). But it shares a concentration on the lives of ordinary people, their humour and stoicism. Yara’s tale of summer love unwinding against a background of almost Edenic beauty is a triumphant celebration of youth and innocence.

Despite the plot unfolding in a remote Lebanese village, Yara remains true to its role models, and for that reason it manages to strike up a secret dialogue with Buñuel and Bresson.

Shooting this depopulated landscape of craggy, dry verdancy with a directness that feels spontaneous and with a documentary impulse, Fahdel’s beautiful film is naive in the best of ways, with almost no conflict or dramatic drive, but replacing this need with the sensation that each thing photographed, whether real or fictive, is being filmed for the first time, simply, expediently, honestly.