“A powerful and reflective document of the victories and disappointments of an ongoing revolution.”

Georges Moufarej is a veteran of the Lebanese Civil War that ravaged the country for fifteen years. Underneath his bluster and boasting of having participated in a bus attack that was the instigating incident of years of violence and destruction are a sense of disillusionment and bitterness. The Civil War gained him a nickname, “Father of the Night”, but it lost him a leg. He spends his days in delusion, reminiscing over the ‘glory’ of his days as a war hero, but what has this war brought his country? He is a guardian of Lebanon’s violent past, but what does his experience say about the country’s future?

Joumana Haddad is a Lebanese author, feminist, journalist, and human rights activist whose cultural and social activism has made her one of the most powerful Arab women. As a child she lived through the final years of the Civil War, giving her knowledge of both sides of the coin. Haddad ran for parliament in the 2018 elections and was declared a winner, only to have this result overturned by authorities the following day. Though she lost an appeal on the decision, this hasn’t stopped her activism and her fight for a fairer government.

Perla Joe Maalouli is a young female activist who grew into a symbol of the 2019 uprising. Coming from a working-class background, Maalouli is one of many disaffected young people in Lebanon who are frustrated with their chances in society and fed up with the webs of lies and corruption the people that rule them spin. Those people are the former warlords of Lebanon’s turbulent past who have now chosen the political arena as their battlefields. As the youth flooded the streets in October 2019, the fearless Maalouli was at the front fighting her own war for a better Lebanon.

And then it all exploded…

Myriam El Hajj’s documentary Diaries from Lebanon spans three generations of disenchanted people who live in a stagnant country controlled by the ghosts from its past. In one way or the other they are all connected to the sruggle to change this, either because they have tried or because they stood on the barricades in more recent years. “We live in a three-wall prison”, one of its subjects says, referring to the country being hemmed in between various forces that have tried to exert influence over its society for decades. A combination of a loose interviewing style and fly-on-the-wall reporting, Diaries from Lebanon is one of those documentaries whose initial ideas were thwarted when actual history took over. Focusing on Haddad initially and showing her win-then-loss from up close, El Hajj’s film quickly evolves as this event was another drop in the bucket of frustration that eventually overflowed one year later. El Hajj became guided by what happened on Beirut’s streets more than she was directing them. That is how Maalouli eventually comes into the picture and the three portraits become connected.

Diaries from Lebanon is thrown in yet another direction on August 4th, 2020, when a large amount of ammonium nitrate stored at the Port of Beirut explodes, not only destroying part of the city but also changing the lives of Moufarej, Haddad, and Maalouli, and the large part of Lebanese society they represent. The aftermath leads to more protest, and old flames are reignited. As the title suggests, Diaries from Lebanon becomes a chronicle of a country in turmoil, a country with a history that pits passion against disillusionment, despair against hope. Raw and honest, the film is a powerful snapshot of Lebanon perpetually on the brink of change and of getting back up after being knocked down. While the segments with the oftentimes cryptic Moufarej can be hard to get through, El Hajj’s documentary passionately captures the emotions of the people it points its camera at. Yet the film is at its most striking in the transitions between segments, when it takes its time to calm down and look at a flock of balloons reaching for the heavens (a metaphor of sorts, perhaps) or the stark images of a tangle of power lines against a clear blue sky. These are moments to reflect on the chaos and struggle, and they elevate Diaries from Lebanon to a higher level as a powerful and reflective document of the victories and disappointments of an ongoing revolution.