A highly political movie that's also a personal story of two men going head-to-head while the women around them are left to pick up the pieces, this gorgeously shot and classily acted feature might be a reel too long but is nonetheless a fascinating piece of work.

It’s weighed down by symbolic significance, yet powerful and instructive all the same, with a few flickerings of black comedy.

How Joelle Touma’s script progresses is heavy-handed in its desire to augment the tensions and provide justifications, but it’s still powerful nonetheless.

The film also has plenty to say about male stubbornness and the casual misogyny that lurks behind the apparent equality of Lebanese society.

There is something undeniably exhilarating about the film’s honest assessment of the never-ending conflict between decency and cruelty that rages in every nation, neighborhood and heart.