Lebanon’s leading avant-garde filmmaker Ghassan Salhab has always been unapologetically art house, scraping away at traditional forms of narrative to create elliptical works reliant on unfussy compositions and layered sound design.
His films explore liminal emotional states connected with Lebanon’s troubled history, capturing a sense of disturbance that practically quivers with unexpressed tension.
His latest, “The River,” concludes a trilogy consisting of “The Mountain” and “The Valley,” and while it’s his most objectively beautiful feature yet, it also gives nothing away, demanding a heightened engagement with both his artful mise-en-scène and his nation’s psychological state.
As such, “The River” will meander through the more experimental waters of festivals and showcases where Salhab may even pick up new acolytes thanks to the film’s striking aesthetic.Of the three films, “The Valley” had the most of what could vaguely be called a plot, though its concerns went
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