The Valley of Tears

excellent movie! Very emotional and very powerful. The director said that it is not like Incendies but I think it is! Actually it is more intellectual as a film but as powerful as Incendies. Also, I don't see a big relation with Valse with Bashir, even though it talks about the same events. La Vallee of tears is more like an intimate film that has the brilliant way to bring the whole image of what is happening in this part of the world through the desperate lives of Marie the Canadian and Joseph the Lebanese/Palestinian, two solitudes like we say in Canada about Quebec. Anyway, it shook the hell out of me... My boyfriend, Canadian, was less moved, I guess it is a matter of being Lebanese myself... but he liked it as well!

The relationship between the Canadian woman and the Lebanese man is a so gentle and so delicate. The director succeed in creating Arab character that is so very different from what usually show us. This is how I know my husband, gentle and kind. I also was very impressed by the subject the director have decide to tell because she is not afraid of the film she did and she is very open to talk about why and how. Like Farid I am totally find it courageous because she is Christian and talk about Sabra and Chatila. May God be on her side for all her coming films. Where can I find her first film? The Valley of Tears is gouing to be release in Egypt? I will be happy to recommend it.

This movie is an original script. It's about a boy who survived the Sabra and Chatila massacres in Lebanon back in 1982. Now he wants his testimony to be published anonymously. He meets with a Canadian publisher and starts telling his story. It is terrifying! I imagine middle age reviewers will not particularly like this movie, though older and intellectual ones will most likely love it. But it's a film about 2 lonely souls even if it talks about redemption, self-sacrifice and hopeful future. It's directed by Maryanne Zéhil, a Canadian/Lebanese woman (which explains the great knowledge of both cultures.) It's beautifully crafted (gorgeous cinematography) and has intelligent dialogues and storytelling. The performances are all around great. Nathalie Coupal is amazing, however, the film probably won't get a large enough release to be on the radar because of unknown cast and French dialogues. Of course, setting the movie in Lebanon (in Canada too) means one of the main character is the location. Beautiful country that may change the way we imagine the Middle-East.

I liked this film.

"Just when you think "The Valley of Tears" is going to be another good-for-you we-must- never-forget history movie -- about the 1982 massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, which have been forgotten by most of the world -- a shocking act of contemporary violence jolts the film into action. It is carried by the powerful performances of Joseph Antaki as Joseph, a secretive, sad- eyed immigrant to Montreal with a tragic past, and Nathalie Coupal as Marie, the depressive alcoholic Canadian genocide-book publisher who tries to convince him that to tell his story will be healing.

But then, a terrible act of revenge shatters Marie's plan, and she must travel to Lebanon to try to uncover the truth of Joseph's story. There she learns not only about Joseph's past, but also confronts some painful truths about herself. Truth about the massacres, which to this day remains a controversial topic in Lebanon and Israel, is harder to find. But healing, at least for Marie and Joseph's family, is at last seen as possible." LDM The Plaindealer

It is a little bit slow at the beginning but I could see how important that was for me a- to understand the story b- to get deeper and deeper in the plot. This film started to grow on me, little by little, and at the end I was totally under its powerful spell... I recommend you to see this film with concentration because I thought it is a fine grained story with a lot of emotion. It is like a puzzle where all the pieces come in place at the end. Marie is so touching and Joseph too. As for the mother, I coulnd't understand a word she said but just by looking at her I could feel every word coming out of her mouth! La Vallee des larmes is a terrific film!