Jordan. My favorite movie so far. Set in the Arabian desert in world war one. An adventure story, and, a coming of age story. Theeb, the main character, begins the story as a boy and is entering manhood at the end. Its only marginally connected to the war, its in Arabic and almost all the characters are Bedouins being Bedouins, doing Bedouin stuff. The old-time Bedouins’ place in today’s Arab world approximates a combination of cowboys and Indians to us. manly guys with a code. And, its not a bad code, nothing like the nonsense the nut-jobs who make the news in the area these days. Starting with hospitality to strangers, sticking by your family and keeping your word. A long time ago I read a book by TE Lawrence, and he said “it was thought effeminate by the Arabs to carry a provision of food for a little journey of one hundred miles”. Stuff like that.
The basic story as well as the story telling is a lot like an old fashioned Western. They ride around on camels in stead of horses, through areas known only to the local tribe, having adventures and being manly. Great stuff. A perfect ending, again not unlike our Westerns.
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