Where Do We Go Now? (Blu-ray Review)

27 Sep, 2012 By: Angelique Flores

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Sony Pictures
Drama
Box Office $0.5 million
$30.99 DVD, $45.99 Blu-ray
Rated ‘PG-13’ for thematic drug material, some sensuality and violent images.
In Arabic, Russian and English with English subtitles.
Stars Nadine Labaki, Layla Hakim, Claude Baz Moussawbaa.

A comedy-drama-musical about a group of Lebanese women who try to halt the fighting between the Christians and the Muslims in their village … sounds like an odd recipe for a film, right? 

Director and screenwriter Nadine Labaki creatively and charmingly makes this unique idea of a film work.

As the men of all ages fight and desecrate each other’s churches and mosques, the women find themselves trying a number of maneuvers to get the hostility to stop. Their schemes include such antics as hiring beautiful Russian women to come to town as a distraction, faking an apparition from the Virgin Mary and baking goods with hash to get the guys high and getting along with one another.

Though it carries such a serious topic as religious wars, the film doesn’t shy away from sprinkling humor throughout the drama. There’s even a minor sub-plot of romance in there, and the musical numbers are few and aren’t out-of-place whimsical, though the first one does catch you off guard.

The film is a sort of commentary on the senseless religious wars in the Middle East, with the title posing the question on the villagers’ minds, even when sides seem to come together.

The bonus materials include commentary with Labaki, who also co-stars in the film, and her husband, Khaled Mouzannar, who composed the original music for the film. Labaki, a quite loquacious one, makes for an interesting commentary with lots of details behind the film, the making of it and the cast and crew.

Other extras are an insightful Q&A with Labaki, Mouzannar and producer Anne-Dominique Toussaint; a featurette about the music; and a making-of featurette that is more like a montage of behind-the-scenes and blooper clips.

 

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