Theeb - Spheres Of Influence
Quick Thoughts: Theeb (ذيب, 2014)
Made by Naji Abu Nowar, this is the Jordanian film of the series.
Beautifully shot in the deserts of Jordan, rife with verisimilitude and realism, Theeb uses a simple plot to explore a complicated coming of age in a young Bedouin (a nomadic Arab people) boy. Set in the Middle East during WWI as the Arabs revolt against the ruling (Turkish) Ottoman Empire, this, like Hollywood Westerns and its multitudinous derivatives, is concerned with times lost and times changing. The railway and the train are central, modern archetypes that encapsulate such a thematic base. This then follows, not cowboys, but another dying class of peoples: pilgrim guides who used to help travellers navigate through the deserts to reach Mecca before the train cut across it. A group of these guides is approached by an Englishman colluding with Arab revolutionaries against the Ottomans (his goal most likely being the systematic destabilisation of the Ottoman Empire, who were allied with the Axis powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria). The elder brother of our main character, Theeb, is sent to guide the Englishman to his meeting point with revolutionaries. Theeb follows them, however. It is here that certain character-traits bound to unity, brotherhood and honour arise to conflict against a more abstract sense of duty connected to the nation beyond him - and such is a common characteristic of Westerns.
So often in Westerns a small town, a group of cowboys, outlaws or nomads are in (sometimes unseen) combat with a larger province, a near city or the government. This force arises in Theeb as political combat via the Arab Revolution and WWI. It is the conflict of these two spheres that so often sees characters move between them. As in most Westerns, what arises from our character crossing the boundaries between the smaller and larger spheres is an exploration of the common denominators of the two spheres' values and conflicts. In a Western such as My Darling Clementine, we find the smaller sphere embodied by a family of cowboys. When their herd of cows is stolen and their youngest brother killed, they are forced to integrate into the closest town. In doing so, the eldest becomes its link with the nation more generally by becoming a face of the law: the town marshal. What follows our characters along this journey between the two spheres (between an older, nomadic existence and a modern, civilised existence) is crime. Thus, what unites the two modes of existence is a search for the outlaws who stole their cattle and killed their brother. Alas, what our main character manages in making his transition is a form of ascendance. He then takes the values that a hard nomadic life teaches a cowboy and applies it to marshalling as to clean up the town and, eventually, seek justice for his brother. Thus, the new and the old, the simple and the complicated, the nomadic and the civilised, are reconciled.
Theeb feels like a Western, not just because of its aesthetic and world, but because it follows a very similar structure and utilises very similar themes. In such, our smaller sphere of nomads meets a larger sphere of a nation-wide and world-wide political conflict. In moving between these two spheres, Theeb must apply the values that his nomadic lifestyle has embedded into him as to survive, to seek out justice and, to a degree, right a wrong in the larger sphere.
I am being very careful with what I reveal with this film as I do not want to spoil it. Rather, I urge you to see yourself how this is structurally akin to older Westerns from the 1940s despite being immersed in a Arabic cultural and historical context. If you have seen this film already, however, what do you think of Theeb's relationship with the likes of My Darling Clementine?
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Beautifully shot in the deserts of Jordan, rife with verisimilitude and realism, Theeb uses a simple plot to explore a complicated coming of age in a young Bedouin (a nomadic Arab people) boy. Set in the Middle East during WWI as the Arabs revolt against the ruling (Turkish) Ottoman Empire, this, like Hollywood Westerns and its multitudinous derivatives, is concerned with times lost and times changing. The railway and the train are central, modern archetypes that encapsulate such a thematic base. This then follows, not cowboys, but another dying class of peoples: pilgrim guides who used to help travellers navigate through the deserts to reach Mecca before the train cut across it. A group of these guides is approached by an Englishman colluding with Arab revolutionaries against the Ottomans (his goal most likely being the systematic destabilisation of the Ottoman Empire, who were allied with the Axis powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria). The elder brother of our main character, Theeb, is sent to guide the Englishman to his meeting point with revolutionaries. Theeb follows them, however. It is here that certain character-traits bound to unity, brotherhood and honour arise to conflict against a more abstract sense of duty connected to the nation beyond him - and such is a common characteristic of Westerns.
So often in Westerns a small town, a group of cowboys, outlaws or nomads are in (sometimes unseen) combat with a larger province, a near city or the government. This force arises in Theeb as political combat via the Arab Revolution and WWI. It is the conflict of these two spheres that so often sees characters move between them. As in most Westerns, what arises from our character crossing the boundaries between the smaller and larger spheres is an exploration of the common denominators of the two spheres' values and conflicts. In a Western such as My Darling Clementine, we find the smaller sphere embodied by a family of cowboys. When their herd of cows is stolen and their youngest brother killed, they are forced to integrate into the closest town. In doing so, the eldest becomes its link with the nation more generally by becoming a face of the law: the town marshal. What follows our characters along this journey between the two spheres (between an older, nomadic existence and a modern, civilised existence) is crime. Thus, what unites the two modes of existence is a search for the outlaws who stole their cattle and killed their brother. Alas, what our main character manages in making his transition is a form of ascendance. He then takes the values that a hard nomadic life teaches a cowboy and applies it to marshalling as to clean up the town and, eventually, seek justice for his brother. Thus, the new and the old, the simple and the complicated, the nomadic and the civilised, are reconciled.
Theeb feels like a Western, not just because of its aesthetic and world, but because it follows a very similar structure and utilises very similar themes. In such, our smaller sphere of nomads meets a larger sphere of a nation-wide and world-wide political conflict. In moving between these two spheres, Theeb must apply the values that his nomadic lifestyle has embedded into him as to survive, to seek out justice and, to a degree, right a wrong in the larger sphere.
I am being very careful with what I reveal with this film as I do not want to spoil it. Rather, I urge you to see yourself how this is structurally akin to older Westerns from the 1940s despite being immersed in a Arabic cultural and historical context. If you have seen this film already, however, what do you think of Theeb's relationship with the likes of My Darling Clementine?
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Previous post:
The Fantastic - The Limits Of Interpretation: What Is A True Allegory?
Next post:
End Of The Week Shorts #68
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
