The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema & Tv
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
      • Shows
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

Berlin Film Festival 2016

Manazil Bela Abwab (Houses Without Doors)

Berlin Film Festival 2016: Manazil Bela Abwab (Houses Without Doors) | Review
25 February 2016
Thomas Unsted
Avatar
Thomas Unsted
25 February 2016

Movie and show review

Thomas Unsted

Manazil Bela Abwab (Houses Without Doors)

★★★★★

Links

FacebookWebsite

Special event

Berlin Film Festival 2016

11th to 21st February 2016

Over the course of the last four years, where tragedy and bleakness appear to be all that can emerge from the ongoing Syrian civil war, it would have been difficult to predict a film as extraordinary as Avo Kaprealian’s documentary Houses Without Doors. Falling closer to experimental film, akin to the legendary French filmmaker Chris Marker, it is certainly not for every audience member, but it does offer something rather extraordinary to encounter in cinema: a film where each edit, frame and camera movement is held in close relationship to the emotions and experiences the filmmaker is representing.

Composed largely from home movie footage shot in Kaprealian’s parents flat in Aleppo, with the only real divergences being small vignettes using archival footage and appropriated clips from other movies, the film is structured from the first-person point of view, with the camera substituting for Kaprealian’s own eye and, in turn, the film itself becoming a window into the consciousness of the filmmaker. Regular sights of the outside world and the war occurring on the ground are seen from the balcony of this apartment, the camera looking down in extreme close-up to grey plumes of smoke rising in the distance or citizens searching the streets attempting to figure out where gunshots are coming from. When inside the flat, the camera is often stuck on the television screen, watching rolling news reports about the war, while Karpealian’s parents discuss in the most banal way the chaos that surrounds them, meanwhile continuing in their daily routines . A deep sense of claustrophobia is forged through the lack of location changes, but the use of a lucid and poetic style of editing ease what would otherwise be a confounding sense of dread.

Through these stylistic devices Kaprealian captures in an incredibly inventive manner what the experience for a citizen during wartime must be like: a peculiar mixture of terror and boredom. His courage in tackling this subject in such an irregular way is what sets Houses Without Doors apart from a great number of documentaries, but his achievement in using the film form to craft for the viewer a psychological expression of his experiences makes this production truly remarkable.

★★★★★

Thomas Unsted

House Without Doors does not yet have a UK release date.

Read more of our reviews and interviews from the festival here.

For further information about the Berlin Film Festival 2016 visit here.

Watch the trailer for Houses Without Doors here:

Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.

YouTube privacy policy

If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.

Related Itemsreview

More in Berlinale

Berlinale 2021: Top picks to look out for in the festival’s 71st edition

The editorial unit
Read More

Eeb Allay Ooo! interview with Prateek Vats

Oliver Johnston
Read More

My Little Sister: An interview with Nina Hoss, Marthe Keller and the directors

Joseph Owen
Read More

“We’re able to have fun without being locked into our mobile phones”: An interview with Delete History directors Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern

Oliver Johnston
Read More

Irradiated (Irradiés)

★★★★★
Oliver Johnston
Read More

There Is No Evil (Sheytan vojud nadarad)

★★★★★
Oliver Johnston
Read More

Berlin Film Festival 2020: Awards predictions and highlights from the festival

The editorial unit
Read More

There Is No Evil press conference: Backing Mohammad Rasoulof and the subjectivity of cinema

Oliver Johnston
Read More

Police (Night Shift) press conference with Anne Fontaine, Virginie Efira and Omar Sy

Oliver Johnston
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

Thomas Unsted

Manazil Bela Abwab (Houses Without Doors)

★★★★★

Links

FacebookWebsite

Special event

Berlin Film Festival 2016

11th to 21st February 2016

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Creation Stories
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • Smith & Burrows – Only Smith & Burrows Is Good Enough
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Detroit Stories – Alice Cooper
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Gatsby at Cadogan Hall: An interview with Jodie Steele and Ross William Wild
    Theatre
  • Wrong Turn
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Black Bear
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • Jumbo
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • Da Capo
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • My Wonderful Wanda
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • Foster Boy
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Da Capo
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • My Favourite War
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • Typical at Soho Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Detroit Stories – Alice Cooper
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Minari
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Berlin Film Festival 2016: La Route d’Istanbul (The Road to Istanbul) | Review
Berlin Film Festival 2016: Europe, She Loves | Review