The day dawns on Izmir, the big port city of Turkey. On the phone, a translator gets impatient …
What’s the connection between the Syrian refugees crisis of 2016, and that phone call from Assad the father to Ronald Reagan, thirty years before ? End of Season is very careful about not drawing a line between these two events. Completely un-contexttualized, the taping is only evocative : it instills the series of waiting and stand-still, the feeling of a dangerous diplomatic situation, the underlying disdain between the East and the West. On screen, the passing images are presented as distant effects of that politcal time bomb, their inevitable consequence- like little streams which, on screen, are piling up before falling into the sea, taking the refugees with them. The incredible records of sound find its echo in the unrealism of the images : a globalized city where tourists and refugees are mixed up, and where men are taking selfies with their life-jacket, their last clothe. The stupefied waiting on the phone never ended : more confused than ever, the world is on the edge, showing the disoriented face of a smiling disaster.
Now : End of Season
Ayman Nahle
Lebanon, Syria • 2015 • 20’
VO : Arabic, Eng • ST : Fr
Bidayyat : http://bidayyat.org
aymen.nahle@gmail.com