From the movie: “In Lebanon, the fate of 17000 disappeared persons during the civil war remains unknown. Their families have been working for tears to unveil what happened to them.”
“Perhaps Today…” is screening at Busan International Short Film Festival
Nadine Asmar focuses on this concept and presents a short that revolves around a mother, Oum Karim, who tries to survive her every day life, despite the trauma the war left. However, and despite her seemingly happy demeanor, the impact of not knowing what happened to her son remains, with the whole thing coming to the fore after a simple encounter with the local baker and his son, Ghassan.
Following the aesthetics of an ad essentially, through the rather bright images and the intense close ups, “Perhaps Today…” has an evident goal of showing the impact the war had on mothers whose sons were involved in it one way or the other, and even more, the impact of not knowing has on them. In that fashion, it becomes evident through the 9 minute short that this question, and what is essentially a false hope, can be even worse than the loss, since it does not allow people to move forward. Oum Karim’s feelings become evident, not only through the announcement she hears, but also through the way she feels when watching the baker’s interactions with a son he thinks is useless, but it is evident that she would do anything to have a “useless” son with her, instead of the question that fills her heart now.
The corner in the house which essentially functions as a Christian altar, and the news from the communal cemetery highlight the above even more eloquently, as much as the pain of the mother. In that fashion, Claude Baz Moussawbaa in the protagonist role gives an excellent performance, highlighting both her hideen and her evident pain in the most convincing fashion, in a performance that is definitely anchoring for the movie.
“Perhaps Today…” makes a definite point of what its filmmaker wanted to say, in a film though, that would have been much more impactful if Asmar had more time to make her point.
