All the world’s one family in Diary of Gabrielle Street (Journal de la rue Gabrielle), one of the first documentaries to chronicle the two-plus months of lockdown that Europe went through in its battle against Covid-19. It seems like an obvious topic for cooped-up documentary filmmakers to have explored during the period of forced inactivity in 2020, and this is a fine evocation of what it felt like, at least for those fortunate enough not to have fallen sick. Having shot most of his work in Palestine, from refugee camps to the West Bank and Gaza under curfew, director Rashid Masharawi is uniquely qualified, in his way, to measure the arduous strain of being confined to one’s own home for an extended period of time. The 62-minute doc’s world premiere at Cairo should herald more festival play and other outings.
Contrary to what one might imagine, Diary is anything but a dour, ambulance-wailing dirge to the early victims of the pandemic. On the contrary, perhaps because the director has seen worse (“sieges, bombs, blackouts”), it focuses on more mundane matters. The destabilizing change of habits that lockdown entailed, the boredom of walking the dog on the same street day after day, the inconvenience of not being able to fly home. Only one character is taken away from the neighborhood in an ambulance, and it’s not even sure that coronavirus is to blame.
Most reassuring of all, the setting of Masharawi’s lockdown is picture postcard rue Gabrielle in the most romantic quarter of Paris, Montmartre. Perched high on a hill with all of Paris at its feet and topped by the imposing Sacré Coeur basilica like a hat, Montmartre’s narrow cobblestone streets are much more enthralling when they’re empty of human beings. On steep stairs are cut into the hillside, the occasional jogger huffs and puffs uphill. The whole scene – similar to that of many Old World cities and towns under lockdown – is a time traveler’s dream, an empty film set poised to spring to life.
And life there is under the still and silent surface. Though there are very few on the street, people are the heart of the film. There is the well-stocked Moroccan grocer whose store appears to be the only one open; a man from Georgia who compares curfew experiences with the director’s; a Greek (him)-Spanish (her) couple who got caught in Paris by the pandemic. And of course Masharawi himself, who roams the empty streets freely with what one imagines is a cell phone or a small camera, spreading friendship and cheer with his greetings in bad French.
In fact, apart from a rueful Frenchman with a bulldog and the 95-year-old Paulette, Montmartre is depicted as a bohemian neighborhood populated by an assortment of foreigners. The stress of lockdown brings them together and whittles away their differences, showing that even the dark cloud of Covid has a silver lining if it makes us realize we are one interconnected community. This upbeat message is the main take-away from a small but carefully observed corner of coronavirus’s first year.
Director, producer, screenplay, cinematography, editing: Rashid Masharawi
Production company: Cinema Production and Distribution Center
Venue: Cairo Film Festival (Arab Cinema Horizons)
In Arabic, French, English
62 minutes