What do you do when you’ve got no choice but to leave everything behind? Or rather, what do you do when all you’ve ever known leaves you behind? Friends, family, the places that made you, the alleys that held you when you decided to run away as children – and where you kissed, decades later. What do you do when you witness history repeating itself, yet again, despite collective promises otherwise? تنذكر ما تنعاد, meaning ‘may it be remembered, but never repeated’ remains a hymn in the empty words of our parents and grandparents, remembering past wars, attacks, explosions.
The romantic comedy/drama A Sad and Beautiful World (2025), directed by Lebanese filmmaker Cyril Aris and co-written by Aris and Bane Fakih, transports its audiences to a world that is quite literally very sad yet very beautiful. This world happens to be eerily familiar to us Lebanese, Arabs, and diasporas. A Sad and Beautiful World (2025) follows the love story of Nino and Yasmina, born a minute apart amid the brutality of the Lebanese civil war. The film’s capaciousness holds space for a destined love that resists the tumultuous ebb and flow of political unrest. Aris is masterful in retracing elements of collective childhood nostalgia, as we’ve all heard the music emanating from the ice cream van on a hot summer day and we’ve all certainly stomped on the empty pineapple flavoured triangular juice boxes. Aris never fails to expose the consistent inconsistencies of Lebanese society – our blissful oblivion, our wilful ability to curse (and get creative with it), and certainly, our love of a glass of Arak coupled with a forgetful laughter echoing across the dancefloor. I must also command the exceptional performance of Mounia Akl whose role as Yasmina is truly captivating; Akl skilfully encompasses the emotional and moral contradictions that her character demands, particularly when balancing out the grounded yet dreamy character of Nino.
– Yasmina: ‘You know the country’s falling apart, right? And it’s only getting worse? Where do you live?’
– Nino: ‘I’m living with you here, in this very moment. Are you one of these people who hate on the country and then leave?’
– Yasmina: ‘I’m one of those who don’t lie to themselves.’
There is a Nino and a Yasmina in every one of us, torn between staying and leaving, between unbearable realities and wishful thinking. A Sad and Beautiful World is one that lingers at the edge of hope – a hope of new beginnings, better ones, despite it all. This film takes us by the hand to an endless overnight queue to obtain a passport. It cements us on the side of the road as a dying grandpa is stuck in an ambulance that is unable to pass through a closed road so that a corrupt politician’s motorcade can pass. Yet, Aris’ camera drives us against the flow of traffic, past the endless waithood, the scarred dignities, the agony, the anger, toward an elsewhere. Aris invites us to imagine an ephemeral, fictive, liminal yet open-ended place: The Island. This is a place where Nino and Yasmina – and equally the audience – can escape from the absurdity of the world that they/we know, Lebanon in all its familiar chaos.
– Young Nino: ‘Grandpa?’
– Nino’s Grandpa: ‘Yes?’
– Young Nino: ‘When will Mom and Dad be back from the hospital?’
– Nino’s Grandpa: ‘They are no longer in the hospital.’
– Young Nino: ‘Where are they?’
– Nino’s Grandpa: ‘They went to a beautiful place. The most beautiful place in the world. The Island. Where there are no bullets. No war. No missiles. And they even have electricity at night.’
The Island becomes a refuge for Nino and Yasmina, and simultaneously, for us as an audience. The Island allows us to dream. It allows us to desire. It allows us to want tenderness. A tenderness like that of Nino and Yasmina’s love story: ‘The world had no beauty to offer. Until I met you.’
Film review by Salma Yassine