Jordan's entry for this year's Foreign Language Film Oscar, Theeb started its journey at last year's film festivals and has since slowly gained influential respect including a personal recommendation from Jan Harlan. It's a coming of age journey during the first World War and despite being far from the battlegrounds, violence still finds its way in the remote deserts. It's an old fashioned type film with its choices of photography and music, but it's refreshing to have a perspective otherwise unexplored. Putting its war story in a minimalist microcosm, it's about the conflicting loyalties of manhood in the wake of survival, as well as the changing times as the railroads are starting to be installed and upset the balance of life in Jordan. The film is straightforward but it wouldn't be fair to call it completely stripped down, it works with the small tools it's got. Nothing hooked me more into the film than the surprising mid-point turn, director Naji Abu Nowar can be as bold as his titular character at times.
7/10
7/10