Daily featured on CNN, the Middle East lies in the crucible of world events and has achieved recent notoriety in cinematic art, especially in Iran where filmmakers Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Bahman Ghobadi, and Majid Majidi have created a body of fine films. These are frequently played at film festivals, occasionally find their way into U.S. arthouses, and are fairly accessible via VHS/DVD. On the other hand, Lebanese films rarely get screened in the U.S. That may soon change with Lebanon's official 2003 entry for the Academy Awards' Best Foreign Language Film, The Kite (Le Cerf-volant). With less censorship Lebanon's "controversial" director Randa Chahal-Sabbag would get much wider viewing. In 1999 censors chopped out over half of her 97-minute film, A Civilized People (about the Lebanese civil war), and it's yet to screen in her home country.

This time the material is more politically palatable for Lebanese officials after Israeli withdrawal from the southern region of the Golan Heights. Set in the Druze area of the Golan Heights known as the Valley of Laments and Tears, the story is a combination coming of age struggle for freedom and amplified "Romeo and Juliet" tale with two promising young actors in their film debuts. The scenario matching 15-year old Lamia (Flavia Bechara) with 17-year old Israeli soldier Youssef (Maher Bsaibes) fits well with Sabbag's tale of lovers living in limbo on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Both are Druze, separated by arbitrary physical boundaries and long-standing religious and cultural traditions.

The Druze themselves metaphorically represent a "no man's land", as they aren't regarded as Muslims despite their claims and they're certainly not Jewish. For their own safety and protection, adherents of the Druze religion attempt to blend in with whatever community they find themselves in. That is what Youssef strives to do. Trained as a physicist, he has just joined the Israeli reserves for border duty but doesn't blend in well. First gazing at Lamia's beauty through binoculars he quickly falls into his own fantasy world. Interesting parallels are drawn between Youssef's unrequited love and similar longings by older Israeli soldier Ziad (Ziad Rahbani) who settles for a prostitute to satisfy his needs. Yet the filmmaker juxtaposes numerous framing shots tying Youssef with Lamia—adjusting their headgear or pensively looking through their personal "prisons" (the guard tower vs. the brass bars of a bed).

Lamia wants to shape her own destiny, and sees the barbed wire barriers separating her Druze relatives as folly. Her family believes that she is destined to marry Samy (Edmond Haddad), carry out her traditional wifely duties, and raise a family; however, Lamia believes differently. She also is not afraid to act on these feelings. When her white kite becomes entangled in the barbed wire on the Israeli side, she proceeds to cross into the heavily mined "no man's land" amidst warning shots to retrieve it. Her courage amazes her younger companions and impresses the soldiers on guard duty, yet she later explains that she's not afraid because she realizes that she's going to die and may "already be dead." Central to accepting this philosophy, as well as following the film's ambiguous sequences, is the Druze belief system of reincarnation where all souls are destined to be reborn in human form. Thus, the film does work as a strong statement for peace, yet it works well beyond moralistic fable.

Photography in the little scene Mt. Hermon valley is beautiful and the cultural aspects educational, but the real high points come from Amira (Randa Asmar), Mabrouke (Renée Dick), and other women with their scenery chewing humor. Without phones, the most practical method of communicating across the border utilizes color coded scarves and megaphones. These are hardly ordinary messages, so details about Lamia's ability to "speak the language of De Gau" instead of that "wretched language of the Jews" or about her menstrual cycle are met with quips about Samy's sexual prowess with goats. Hardly the language you'd expect from devoutly religious women, but they bring welcome comic relief to the fable. Certainly the main gist of the film is metaphorical, and certain surreal scenes make this even more evident, but these women cleverly communicate their values while bringing the dreamlike scenario down to earth.

At 80 minutes Sabbag's morality tale is well-paced and definitely worth viewing. Despite a few editing jumps and over-reliance on songs to carry the message, the story flows well and demonstrates that the director is firmly in control of her narrative. Much of the freshness comes from the subject matter and geography of the region. We'd expect pointed political messages and pleas for peace from Lebanese cinema, yet Sabbag restrains herself from preaching to create a very warm-hearted and sincere tale. Without communication we can hardly ever learn how Lebanese natives view their existence. That's how Kiarostami and his Iranian peers have successfully exposed many cineastes to the humanity of his countrymen, so hopefully The Kite will serve as a breakthrough project that enables us to see future films from this dynamic corner of the world.