subject: Watch Where Do We Go Now?movie Online Free Review [print this page] Women try to persuade their men to put a stop to war in this fusion of comedy and drama from director, screenwriter and actress Nadine Labaki. Amal (Labaki) runs a caf in a small Lebanese village where the local women, both Christian and Muslim, get together to talk, swap ideas and share grief as the number who've lost sons or husbands in frequent skirmishes continues to grow. The fighting between religious and political factions has been going on for years, and one day Amal and her friends Afaf (Layla Hakim), Saydeh (Antoinette Noufaily), Takla (Claude Baz Moussawbaa) and Yvonne (Yvonne Maalouf) declare it's time to stop talking about the fighting and do something to stop it. The local women join forces to distract their men, convinced if they put their minds on other things they won't worry so much about killing, and their efforts range from serving hashish-laced baked goods at a community get-together to hiring Ukrainian dancers to show off their charms to the menfolk. After a young man is killed in a gun battle, the women realize they need to take a stronger stand if they intend to make their home safe again; meanwhile, Christian Amal unwittingly strikes a blow for religious unity when she falls for handsome Muslim Rabih (Julien Farhat). Et Maintenant On Va Ou? (aka Where Do We Go Now? won the People's Choice Award at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival
In her book Urgent Message from Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World, Jean Shinoda Bolen, a Jungian analyst, makes a plea for women to rally together to bring about political and social change in the world. She states."Until women collectively become involved in creating a culture of peace to stop violence begetting violence in the human family, women and children will continue to be the primary casualties."Bolen points out that women in America banded together to bring about new possibilities with "the women's suffragette movement" and with the "women's liberation movement." On an international level, women made a difference through the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina. Christian and Muslim women brought peace to Liberia in 2003 through nonviolent protests and actions based on reconciliation and forgiveness.In The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering, a parable for adults, a Native American elder tells the author Sharon Mehdi that "men have taken the world as far as they can; it's up to women to lead us the rest of the way."
Beirut and the responses of five women to men, sex, relationships, and their bodies. The story also conveys the very real societal and religious pressures that cause tension, guilt, and fear in their everyday lives as they try to find their small portion of happiness.Where Do We Go Now? covers some of the same themes. It is about women who set out to bring peace to their embattled village where Christian and Muslim men fight over everything. Labaki mixes genres in this inventive hybrid film. There are comic moments, dramatic scenes, and some fantasy music and dance numbers. The film was shown at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and won the People's Choice Award (Best Narrative Feature) at the Toronto International Film Festival (2011).Christian and Muslim women, young and old, all wearing black dresses, move slowly in a funeral march across arid land with the dust swirling around them. Some of the marchers wear headscarves and others have crosses on chains around their necks. It is a ritual of grief for the men who have been killed on both sides of the religious divide. The mourning women hold photographs of their sons and husbands, bow their heads and beat their chests as the slow procession heads to the graveyard. It is a dance of lamentation that speaks volumes about the toll and the tragedy of violence, religious hatred, and revenge.
The setting for this story about peacemaking is set in a small, isolated village in the Middle East that is accessible only by a damaged bridge. The place is surrounded by land mines. When the community of Muslims and Christian families gather together in the caf run by Amal (Nadine Labaki), a Christian widow with a young son, they eat the meat of a goat who was killed by a landmine.The priest and imam are tolerant of each other their houses of worship are across the street from each other and they are willing to do all they can to promote co-operation between their congregations. Amal is attracted to Rabih (Julien Farhat), the Muslim handyman, but is apprehensive of taking her feelings beyond playing out fantasies in her mind.When the villagers hear a television report of religious violence elsewhere, the women start talking loudly so their men don't follow suit and get into a brawl. This is all part of their ongoing campaign to cool the men down and end the senseless violence. The mayor's wife (Yvonne Maalouf) mimics a vision of the Virgin Mary, a group of Ukrainian showgirls are hired to divert the attention of the men, the television is wrecked so no more newscasts can be seen, and the men are secretly given food containing hash and sedatives. Meanwhile the women locate a hidden cache of guns and move them to another location. When catastrophe befalls a young boy, his Christian mother (Claude Baz Moussawbaa) curses God and sets in motion the final and most convincing effort to demonstrate the possibilities of Christian and Muslim solidarity.Watch free movies online
Unfolding in an unspecified time and uncertain place, the pic's poetic and visually striking opening moments establish the universal nature of the theme Labaki is humorously addressing, as a bevy of black-clad women (some in headscarves and some bearing crosses) sets off for the local cemetery, their solidarity splitting only when some veer toward the Christian section and others toward the Muslim. They're from a place with more dead than living, a remote spot lacking television reception, surrounded by landmines and accessible only by a damaged bridge, where mosque and church stand nearly side by side.Most days, the women gather at the cafe of feisty Christian widow Amal (helmer Labaki) to work on joint projects and share gossip. When a flare-up in fighting in the outside world incites local incidents between members of the two faiths, the women work night and day to defuse the situation, with some of their solutions more potent than others.Collaborating again with her "Caramel" co-scripters, along with "A Prophet" scribe Thomas Bidegain, Labaki overeggs the pudding with a surfeit of characters at the expense of emotionally engaging character development. A hint of interfaith romance between Amal and handyman Rabih (Julien Farhat), sweetly limned in a fantasy song-and-dance scene, might have raised the emotional stakes but remains only a comic gimmick.
Likewise, a problem of tone emerges as seriously tragic incidents fail to have a dramatic impact, surrounded as they are by overwrought comic set ieces. And for a long stretch in the middle, even the comedy starts to flag as the women arrange to import a group of Ukrainian "dancers" from the Paradise Palace, but the plot doesn't do much with them.The mix of thesps and non-pros might have something to do with the lack of energy in the midsection. So, too, the characterization of all the men except the priest and imam as oafs and hotheads. Labaki and fellow pro Claude Baz Moussawbaa, as the mother of a murdered child, each have what should play as a big emotional scene, but instead comes off as shrill message.At its best in illustrating the importance of a common female bond (honored even by the Ukrainian outsiders), the pic has its heart in the right place. Despite her film's failings, Labaki deserves praise for bravely taking on an important issue.Craft credits are pro, but look as if they would have benefited from a bigger budget. Likable if overloud score by Labaki's husband Khaled Mouzanar does some heavy lifting.
