(from Venice Luigi Noera with the kind collaboration of Maria Vittoria Battaglia, Vittorio De Agrò and Anna Maria Stramondo – Photos are published courtesy of the Biennale)

From the Giornate degli Autori OFFICIAL SELECTION IN COMPETITION

DIRTY, DIFFICULT, DANGEROUS by Wissam Charaf – opening film France, Italy, Lebanon, 2022, 101’

Synopsis:

Beirut. Lebanon. Today. Ahmed, a Syrian refugee, and Mehdia, an Ethiopian immigrant who works as a housekeeper, they live a clandestine love made of furtive kisses in the streets of Beirut. While Mehdia tries to free himself from his employers, Ahmed, suffering from a mysterious disease, he makes a living selling recycled metals. Their story has no future, but they have nothing to lose. So they decide to flee in desperate search of a better life. Meantime, Ahmed's condition begins to deteriorate.

The judgment of Maria Vittoria Battaglia is :2,5/5

Dirty Difficult Dangerous it's a film that has a little bit of everything, the war in Syria, impossible love, the life of a migrant and a refugee in a country in crisis, metamorphosis and a pinch of unreality. There is everything, but it seems that this all can not find the right space.

Thwarted love is only hinted at, in a few affectionate scenes and in looks, sometimes incredulous, sometimes challenging, by Ahmed (Ziad Jallad), rejected and heartbroken, and in the sad face of Mehdia (Clara Couturet), trapped in the house where she works and is forbidden to love.

The lovers reunite, but this seems to be just a footnote in a story that takes a different direction; the Syrian refugee camp, the interviews with the rebels by American journalists, the wounds of the bombs, the references to chemical weapons and the testimonies on the war. But that's not even the story that the film wants to tell; Ahmed, The protagonist, suddenly becomes a superhero worthy of the American universe, with the arm, now completely silver, endowed with superhuman strength capable of breaking even the hardest steel; but it is not a superhero story that the film wants to tell.

And so it goes back to the beginning, to the impossible love between a refugee and a migrant who finally manages to triumph. Because you know, even if it travels very long and incomprehensible circuits, in the end love conquers all.

Maria Vittoria Battaglia