
The parents, played by Nadine Labaki and Ziad Bakri, and the children Zain and Riman al-Rafeea. (Credit: Netflix)
There are four: the parents and their two children. Yasmine, played by Nadine Labaki, and Nabil, played by Ziad Bakri, wake up on a deserted island beaten by the waves, within the confines of an old wooden lighthouse. Their children, Adam and Jana (Zain and Riman al-Rafeea), initially seem delighted by this freedom between sky and sea. But as the film progresses, the atmosphere becomes unbearably heavy. They are four, but in a photo "from before," they were five. How many will survive to tell the tale?
This story, which begins like a holiday tale, gradually reveals itself to be a tale of survival. The viewer is plunged into an atmosphere oscillating between dream and nightmare: a radio that barely picks up any signal, with the parents obsessively trying to make it talk; a lighthouse that goes out, requiring manual winding until one's strength is exhausted; the smoking generator threatening to fail; and dwindling supplies and rain that brings some fresh water but raises water levels until the island is submerged; and the danger of the sea and the constant worry of losing the children on this small piece of land that's as alluring as it is dangerous, and a desperately empty horizon, scrutinized until dizzying.
At any moment, he risks losing our interest as dead ends multiply and clues accumulate without always providing paths. This is the signature of young director Matty Brown, whose 'Beyond the Waves' ("The Sand Castle" in English) is his first feature film. Brown himself has experienced wandering, abandoned by his parents at 12, and has, throughout his career, continuously played with the kaleidoscope of reality, filming everything within reach, collecting fragments in hopes of revealing a whole.
This short film prodigy, with the world's largest audience on Vimeo, is a self-taught wonder whose vulnerability makes each of his works a concentration of simplicity and empathy. It remains to be seen if his methods, which are certainly moving in short stories of five to 12 minutes, can hold up over a one-hour-38-minute film.

Filmed on Rabbit Island, off the coast of Tripoli in northern Lebanon, the film turns this rather familiar place, not far from the coast, into a disturbing locale in the middle of nowhere. The lighthouse set, placed there by the director, is made up of salvaged objects from the Middle Eastern region. A large white macramé curtain covers the giant porthole, molded plastic jugs, various utensils including a traditional coffee pot, and miraculously, some coffee, which brings the characters morning comfort, mimicking normal life before the coffee runs out.
An empty cup presented by Adam to his father reverses roles, with the child playing the savior of illusions. Close-ups are numerous, exploring the lighthouse's mechanisms, the found or makeshift objects, blurring things to the point of dematerializing everything and accentuating the blurry narrative itself.

Mother of courage in the face of discouragement
Released on Jan. 24 on Netflix, "Beyond the Waves" is a psychological drama that puts Nadine Labaki in a deeply intense role, restrained, where the essence of the performance is concentrated in facial expression. The minimalist dialogue leaves room for gestural language. The Lebanese actress, a mother of courage in the face of discouragement, is at the height of her art, bearing the tragic force of an Irene Papas in contemporary form.
We enjoy Palestinian actor Ziad Bakri as Nabil, the father trying to provide a decent life for his family until the war — as we understand — decided otherwise. Often moving in his inability to function outside his partnership with his wife, he struggles to forget, but his memory doesn't comply. It will eventually overpower him. We also joyfully welcome back the "little" Zain al-Rafeea, undeniably the star of "Capernaum" (2018), the winner of the Cannes Festival jury prize, César, for best foreign film, best foreign language film at the Golden Globes, directed by Nadine Labaki and produced by Khaled Mouzannar.
In "Beyond the Waves," Zain, 20 years old today, plays a rebellious teenager, headphones glued to his ears, who eventually understands the gravity of the situation and uses his ingenuity to participate in the rescue. With his child-like face on the verge of tears, you'd think he was at most 15 years old.
The success of 'Capernaum," which lifted the Syrian refugee child out of a difficult social context, has made him a convincing actor, inhabiting his roles with remarkable mastery. Saving the best for last: it's the young Riman al-Rafeea, Zain's younger sister and a flower seller in the cemetery of "Capernaum," who seems to carry "Beyond the Waves" on her frail shoulders, so much so that one wonders if she isn't the one who dreamed it all.
Her moving performance encapsulates the overall theme of this film, made in homage to migrants, the displaced and children with childhoods ruined by war.

Premiering at the Red Sea Film Festival, "Beyond the Waves" — and beyond its suffocating atmosphere — is worth watching. First, for its message, then for the actors' performances, especially the children whose evolution is impressive, and finally for the originality of the direction, with fragmented images that powerfully reflect the confusion of these suspended lives.