The painful memory of the war in Lebanon during the 1980s resurfaces in Memory Box, a story set between two cities, Montreal and Beirut, and two eras. Signed Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, this feature film depicts an uprooted family whom a mysterious package, which arrived on Christmas Eve, will plunge back into the history of their country of origin and that of Maia’s lost friendships, interpreted with force by Rim Turki (adult) and Manal Issa (teen).
Filming for this Lebanese-French-Canadian co-production wrapped up in Beirut shortly after the start of the pandemic, but Memory Box couldn’t be more topical as it hits theaters today, a year after it premiered in official competition at the 71and Berlinale. These scenes where Maia and her friends have to take refuge in a bunker for several days while missiles rain down on the Lebanese capital are identical to those that come to us from Mariupol and Loutsk…
Maia, now the mother of a teenager named Alex (Paloma Vauthier), lives in Montreal, where she and her mother, Teta (Clémence Sabbagh), put down roots after fleeing the civil war. A package delivered to their house in her absence will put Teta in all her states, but will pique Alex’s curiosity. It contains the childhood memories of Liza, a former friend of Maia who recently died and with whom she had lost contact for thirty years.
In vain Teta warns her daughter not to dwell on these bad memories, Maia obviously does not want to reread these old diaries and peel photo albums. We suspect, however, that Alex, she wants to learn everything about this life that she has not known. Unbeknownst to Maia, she delves into these archives, piecing together piece by piece the puzzle of her mother’s teenage life, which will resonate with her own.
The director duo uses ingenuity to present us with scenes from the period in flashbacks. Maia having at the time developed a passion for photography, these archives turn out to be rich in images which, put end to end, are transformed into animated scenes before Alex’s eyes, then into reconstructed scenes in Beirut at the time. . Alex thus discovers the friendship of a group of five young girls, their first loves, their eternal evenings, their dreams upset by the war. From an aesthetic point of view, the effect is simple and devilishly effective: even the soundtrack of the time is preserved on audio cassettes that Alex listens to while re-reading the letters that his mother wrote to Liza, who had spent the holidays of been out of town, away from her friends.
Memory Box tactfully exposes the trauma inflicted by the war, helps us better understand the gravity of the moment, how Alex will come to know his own mother better and what she went through before rebuilding her life in Quebec. At the same time, Alex will know his transition to adulthood by waking up to his own history, family and citizen. Benevolent and filled with hope, the conclusion of this skilful and touching film will come to soften the cruellest passages of the life of Maia and her mother Teta.