Review of the Film Solitaire/Mahbas: A Modern Day Romantic Comedy with Tragic Dimensions
By: Nadine Ismail/Arab America Ambassador Blogger
The film opens with a scene of a very busy woman, “Therese” tasting pickled turnip, crispy to perfection. Soon the signs of delight on her face are replaced with disdain and anger as she finds out that the person who made it is a Syrian refugee. Therese is played by Julia Kassar, a top notch Lebanese actress. “Mahbas” represents everything wrong and right in Arab society in general and in Lebanon-Syrian relationship in specific.
The main theme of the movie is the turmoil felt between some Lebanese and Syrian families. Therese has no shame expressing her hate and racism towards Syrians; she feels entitled since her brother was killed by a Syrian bomb 20 years ago. The brother is still present in her life. In fact, his memory takes over her life and causes a rift in her relationship with her family and her marriage. The brother represents her subconscious; he pushes her to act upon her racist feelings and convinces her that there is nothing wrong with destroying relationships among loved ones.
Therese is in for the surprise of her lifetime, as her only daughter’s suitor is Syrian. Naturally, her husband leaves this detail to the last minute as his way of making her cope with reality. He obviously knows her very well and is familiar with her feelings towards Syrian people, lumped all together.
In her eyes, they are all the same. They all, the Syrians, killed her brother, despite hints in other scenes that she spent a beautiful time in Syria before her brother’s incident.
The lunch table is where all the action happens, which is a great choice by the director, Sophie Botrous, since Arabs have a very special relationship with food and sharing meals, especially, in such an important event like an engagement.
Naturally, Therese exceeds everyone’s expectations with a gorgeous table full of wonderful traditional dishes such as Kibbeh, Lahm bi Ajeen and rolled stuffed leaves. Needless to say, this beautiful spread was intended for the suitor before knowing his true nationality. You can feel her revolt when she puts away the fancy hand blown glasses that she originally intended to use to serve the drinks. The kind of glasses that Arab mothers leave for very special guests only, never used for daily use. In her mind, Syrians are not worthy of her fancy antique glasses.
Therese and her brother will not accept this reality; they intend to fight it regardless of the amount of pain they would cause everyone around them. However, this disdain is not one-sided. It seems that the groom’s mother, played by Nadine Khoury, has her own ideas about Lebanese girls, hinting that they are westernized to the extent of promiscuity.
Both the daughter Ghada (Serena Chami) and the future fiance Samer (Jaber Jokhadar) are expats in the UAE. Almost every family in the Middle East has a member or more who immigrated to the Gulf to seek better opportunities. It seems that leaving the homeland is the only choice. Otherwise, those who stay will end up like Marwan, Ghada’s previous boyfriend who teaches tango to the old ladies in the village and repairs cars.
Comic relief is served by the quirky neighbor, Solange, played by Betty Taoutel, a Lebanese comedian; and the interaction between the father of the groom, played by Bassam Koussa and the father of the bride, played by Ali Al Khalil.
The film lightly touches upon rifts in families over land. The father of the bride happens to be the mayor of the village. He is kept busy by trying to mend the relationship between two brothers fighting over the land, a very common source of tension in Arab countries.
The music of the film is also very evocative and it is composed by Ziad Botrous, the brother of the director Sophie Botrous and the superb singer Julia Botrous.
Can personal encounters break stereotypes? can genuine love heal old wounds? Can preconceived ideas and generalizations last forever? Do yourself a favor: make my recipe of Pickled Turnip and go see the “Mahbas”.
It is playing this week in Los Angeles at the Arab Film Festival and in Washington DC at the Arabian Sights Film Festival. This film is a modern-day version of “Guess Who Is Coming for Dinner” with an Arab twist. The cast is wonderful, the rhythm is fluid and the mix of drama and comedy is done right as good as well done pickled turnip.
Arab America Ambassador Blogger, Nadine Ismail, is on Facebook at “Reinventing Nadine” or Instagram @ReinventingNadine. She is a blogger living in the Bay Area in California. She shares on her blog and Instagram account her recipes, crafts and embroidery tutorials, and parental advice, especially raising a bilingual child.
