Noble Sacrifice

Scriptwriter, cameraman, director and producer Vatche Boulghourjian was born in Kuwait of Lebanese-Armenian parents the year the Lebanese war started. His entire life, he has been experiencing the war tension in the Middle East. For this film, which is his first documentary, he selected footage shot by Hezbollah guerrillas and mixed them with his own video material, edited in the same style. That means that all shaky shots are done on purpose to match the video diary of the military groups. The main focus in the film is on the Ashura sacrifice, a very holy event in the Islamic tradition. It has never been presented so vividly and lively in any visual work. The carnival element of Ashura and the rawness of the grotesque are an essential subtext to the whole film. The camera had to capture this equilibrium of elements in order to deliver a danse macabre and to force the viewer to experience the nausea caused by the motion in a sea of blood. Blood becomes a symbol uniting sacrifice, ritual and war. The authentic video images of the martyrs giving an interview moments before they commit a suicide bomb attack intensify the euphoria of the Ashura procession in which youngsters, even small boys, are cutting themselves with blades and machetes. At the same time, the calm voice of the director of the school of Islamic studies explains the importance of Ashura to the Islamic tradition.