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Carol Mansour dedicated five years to complete her latest production, Aida Returns. This deeply moving film uses a well-known literary device: the odyssey. But Aida Abboud, the protagonist of this story and Mansour’s mother, embarks on a journey not in life, but in death. At the end of her days, she intimated to her daughter that she wishes to be cremated and that her ashes be taken to Palestine. Carol carries the ashes with her to Beirut, knowing that she cannot continue the voyage with Aida; the native Palestinians of Yafa are forbidden from going to their ancestral city. Her friends, however, volunteer to make this last wish come true. As Aida’s ashes embark on the journey home, her daughter begins her quest to discover her own roots through those of her mother while trying to understand the multiple exiles that have defined her parents’ lives.
Mansour is a Lebanese Canadian of Palestinian origin. Her mother was from Yafa, her father from Haifa. Her parents were victims of the 1948 Nakba – the disaster that resulted in the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, deprived of their land and property, many of whom ended up in refugee camps in distressing conditions. Mansour’s parents, the Abbouds and the Mansours, sought refuge in Lebanon. They married and started a new life, but the war in Lebanon led to another exodus, this time from Beirut, as Mansour’s family emigrated to Montreal. But no comfort can compensate for the loss of home and land, or of identity itself. As she aged, Abboud struggled with dementia, and as she fell into moments of forgetfulness, she longed for her family home, the house where she grew up in Yafa.
Mansour’s first encounter with Yafa (or Jaffa), a Levantine city on the Mediterranean, was through the British classic books, where Yafa oranges were exotic fruits exported to England and associated with wealth and luxury. Although deeply personal, this documentary presents an insight into a socio-cultural phenomenon named Levantine cities by Philip Mansel*. These cities, such as Alexandria, Beirut, Smyrna and Istanbul, rose to prominence during the nearly 400 years of Ottoman rule in the Levant. Their only border was the Mediterranean Sea. Yafa was an active trading port with an educated and multilingual middle class. Levantine cities were also characterized by their vibrant cosmopolitanism, their openness, their diversity in terms of languages, ethnicities and religions, their modernity and their vulnerability. Their cultural importance was considerable; the characteristics cited above were the very ingredients that made the Nahda, the Arab Renaissance, possible.
The film highlights aspects of Palestine that have been occluded by the Israeli narrative. Too often the Palestine that appears in the media is associated with dereliction and misery. This film reveals a glimpse of a multicultural, diverse and sophisticated Palestine where cocktails and tennis matches were enjoyed by a bustling middle class made up of professionals from excellent schools, speaking multiple languages and appreciating the modernity and openness typical of Levantine cities.
In the film, we see images of the family in Montreal, their third home after being exiled from Palestine and then Lebanon. Mansour has a distinctive narrative style that allows her to tackle the most painful issues with gentle humor and a lighthearted touch. The family seamlessly transitions between French, Arabic and English as they talk about very serious topics: aging, dementia, illness, death and love. Surrounded by embroidered cushions, photo frames and precious furniture, or the lively clutter of life, Abboud slips in and out of lucidity as she tells her daughter that she cannot understand her condition but knows that she wants to live.
She delivers that thought with a nearly flat tone, with an elegant gesture of her beautifully manicured hands, showcasing attention-grabbing red nails.
There is nothing violent or macabre about this warm, sun-infused film. A complicated system of photography uses, among other filming devices, a combination of hand-held cell phones that connect Yafa, Beirut and Montreal, the past and the future. This film is a uniquely personal exploration of loss and exile. It is also a celebration and a vindication of a peaceful, well-led life.
The title, by using the present tense, explains it all: the death of Abboud (Aida) is part of the cycle of life. It is fitting that the word Aida in Arabic means “the one who returns.” Everything falls back into place when her quest is rewarded, and she finds her place in the context of her ancestral home, and her Levantine garden by the Mediterranean Sea. Her memories survived the decades of separation and allowed her to complete her odyssey, to return home. May her memory be eternal.
*Philip Mansel, Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean, Yale University Press 2012
You can watch the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/777005171
