 |
Blood and Beauty in LebanonBlood and Beauty in Lebanon - 21st Century Ashura confounds Western stereotypes to gender and religion in Muslim societies.    Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammed, who is revered by Shia Muslims worldwide, was killed in Karbala in Iraq in 680AD. His martyrdom is commemorated every year in a bloody ritual called Ashura. In hip and cosmopolitan Nabatieh, where Parisian style and Ivy League waviness meet Lebanese liberalism, this sacred ceremony is drenched in a sado-masochistic eroticism that is profoundly secular. A young man deftly scores another's scalp with a blade. Another flagellates himself with iron chains. On the streets of Nabatieh in South Lebanon flows a red sea of virile beauty, of bare-chested young men streaming with blood. But under the guise of ancient rituals of religious ecstasy, what is really going on is an extraordinary gender-bending contemporary dating ritual. Blood and Beauty follows 20-year-old Farah who treats Ashura as her once-a-year opportunity to find a husband, and Tarek who takes part in Ashura to impress the girls with his wound and claim their attention. The film looks at Muslim culture in a distinctly 21st Century form with surprisingly funny and powerful moments. Filmed and directed by Katia Saleh |