Borderlines and forms of liminality abound in Sea Salt.
Seventeen-year-old Nayla (Nathalie Issa) seems to be approaching a multitude of crossroads in Leila Basma’s evocative portrait of late pubescence. As with all of the best films that address this period of any character’s life, the act of progressing forward – of determining the correct path – is not just beleaguered by potholes, but an entirely awkward and discomfiting endeavour. Competing as part of the Orizzonti at Venice, this Lebanon-set short touches upon nascent sexuality, religious mores, and a desire for freedom and how its protagonist navigates the pain points of various physical, familial, social and national contradictions.
Basma uses the film’s littoral setting – a quiet coastal town being cooked by the summer sun – as a useful recurring motif. The water, as is often the case, becomes entwined with her womanhood. Sexual fantasies involve floating, unincumbered in the surf; while diving into the actual ocean prompts hallucinatory moments in which blooms of blood colour the water. That Nayla lives alongside a physical boundary, and that crossing is so tied into her sense of personal discovery and understanding, echo through the narratives that coalesce around her.
As she approaches her eighteenth birthday, the time is fast approaching for Nayla to begin making significant decisions about her future. Her brother Ahmad (Farid Shawki) has returned home for the summer in order to collect her and take her to live in Canada with him – the promise of a life in North America is tempered by her brother’s conservatism about her dress, as well as her impending interview at a university in Beirut which none of the family is aware of. Amongst all this are her cool older friends and the boyfriend she intends to imminently lose her virginity to.
Basma balances these various elements well but equally allows them to all become utterly enmeshed in one another literally and psychologically. Her first time is somehow inextricable from her educational aspirations, her apparently naïve desire to remain in Lebanon part of the same youthful amore with which she gazes at her friend Layal (Hiba Chihane). She’s told that the sea salt can help with bleeding, but here the crossing of thresholds can lead both to emancipation and pain.
Director, screenplay, editing: Leila Basma
Cast: Nathalie Issa, Farid Shawki, Georges Matar, Hiba Chihane, Rabih Abdo
Producer: Natalia Pavlove
Cinematography: Zaher Jureidini
Sound: Dominyka Adomaityte
Music: Aid Kid
Production design: Assad Khoueiry
Production: Other Stories, Stairway Films, FAMU (Czech Republic), Road2Films (Lebanon)
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Orizzonti – shorts)
In Lebanese Arabic
19 minutes
