ARTICLES
Thrilling, painful, mature and very well done. It announces the birth of real cinematographer, who combines courage and talent. A film that has no place for hatred.
A film that goes under the skin.
Fionnuala Halligan – SCREEN DAILY
Simon El Habre certainly emerges as a talent to watch, and his gift for composition and mood indicates he could be equally comfortable in the fiction arena with his next.
Semaan bey, his animals, his visitors, and the land itself speak to us of otherwise unspeakable hardship, grief, and the possibility of beauty and peace in our world. […]Simon El Habre shows us a man living in beauty, in peace with his former enemies. We have a chance, if we listen to stories like this one.
Each story in the film provides a glimpse of the history of Lebanon and the situation of a country half-way between forgetting and remembering. A film in which horror and beauty, pain and poetry are side by side. An unobtrusive reflection on origins, ties forged with places and people, the consequences of war and the attempt to accept painful memories as part of one’s life.
“The One Man Village” is the haunting portrait of a complex, forgotten landscape, frequented mainly by the older generation as a phantom-place occupied with souvenirs of their memory. […] Reaching far beyond the own, familial access and horizon Simon El Habre succeeds in “The One Man Village” to show the landscape as space of memory. With reluctant distance he tries – as still-life and in well-directed and yet casual conversations – not only to understand his uncle but also the psycho-social facets of those who preferred not to return to the village.
Susan G. Cole – Now Magazine (Toronto)
A gem that features one of the festival’s most appealing characters, The One Man Village is a superb document of war’s impact on a changing countryside.
The jury complimented the filmmakers for the “exceptional clarity” of the “enchanting and gripping film”.
Etan Vlessing – Hollywood Reporter
In the opening scenes, Semaan’s life in the deserted village seems almost idyllic. With his cows and animals, it’s as if he’s decided to get back to basics, and return to his roots. However, as the film progresses, many memories resurface and wounds are re-opened.
El Habre has a strong sense of place, no surprise for a family property. His visual compositions are striking for their beauty, but these are not postcard shots. Something almost always happens, and a beautiful still composition becomes part of the story.[...] This is Simon El Habre’s first feature-length documentary. Aside from the photography I have already mentioned, there is a wonderful use of music, sometimes in the foreground, sometimes distant, like an echo of the past.
“Man” on top at Hot Docs festival – Habre’s “Village” wins top prize
Exceptional clarity in the filmic storytelling of a simple man in the Lebanese highlands, told with great empathy and even more skill. This film is an enchanting and gripping film and at once a pleasant and powerful experience.
Beautifully filmed, quirky and affectionate, The One Man Village is a poetic ode to one man’s attempt to preserve a pastoral way of life
The One Man Village is about memory, but it’s also about nostalgia, that fickle selective process of remembering that freezes moments in impossible idylls.
Andrew Robertson – Eye For Film
Simon El Habre, who, directs has a sharp eye. The film’s angles and composition are often stark, affecting, a sort of intimate distance. Emile Aouad’s sound work is very good, demonstrating clear ability. The mixture of live sounds, the occasional music, all contribute to the feel of this film. It is haunting, moving.
