In Beirut, Tony, a Christian car mechanic, and Yasser, a Palestinian Muslim and hard-working construction foreman, get into a trivial argument about fixing a drain pipe. Step by step it escalates, soon becoming a ferocious legal battle, invariably reviving memories of the suffering endured by all sides during Lebanon’s bloody 1970s civil war. Director Ziad Doueiri demonstrates an uncanny ability to dramatize the intractable legacy of traumatic injustices, and how, with their long half-lives, they contaminate even the tiniest facets of everyday social interaction. The result is a thrilling, emotionally charged portrait of the unresolved arguments that dominate contemporary Arab culture.

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