Despite being a Lebanese movie there was a reason it performed incredibly well internationally and especially so in China. Apart from winning the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the movie boxed office at 68.6 million dollars. That's 17 times the original budget to film it.
The passing of "Elderly Rights Law" in China meant parents can sue their children for failure to visit and financially providing for them while children are strongly discouraged from suing negligent parents. So now one can roughly guess the theme of this movie. Unlike other Asian countries, China emphasized on filial piety hence the notion of lawsuit against one's parents became more so intriguing to repressive Mainland Chinese.
This thought-provoking movie was filmed amidst the chaotic backdrop of a war torn Lebanon. The documentary-like realism approach adopted by the Director made this movie the more so irresistible. Our protagonist was a sad looking scrawny Syrian refugee born in the slums of Beirut. There were numerous chain of events that led our protagonist to ultimately seek justice against those very people who brought him into this ruthless world.
A recurring question explored by this movie was "Should refugees in war torn countries have children even at the expense of these children being denied access to basic human rights?" Several issues affecting the most vulnerable layer of society were child marriage, child labor, drug trafficking, illegal adoption, maltreatment, neglect, corruption, fake documentations and oppression of migrant workers. All of which were very heavy topics to digest. Watching this movie was such an intense eye-opener.
The ending of the movie was sort of unexpected. I was blown away by the protagonist sense of humor in spite of being surrounded by devastation. As a victim of circumstances our protagonist refused to surrender to fate. He was forced to mature way beyond his time. Kudos to brilliant child actors!
Thank you for reading!
Happy weekend!
Cheers,
Wheat