In Arabic, the word for civil war is literally translated as “family war” (harb il-ahleyeh). In the Battlefields, the courageous debut film from Danielle Arbid, is set during one of the longest and bloodiest civil wars in recent history. It concerns two concurrent battles in the life of 12-year old Lina, externally that of the Lebanese conflict of the Seventies and Eighties and the concurrent internal breakdown of her family. Atypical of many coming of age stories is In the Battlefields' ability to depict the fragile balance between the innocence and cruelty of childhood, as no character in the film is uncorrupted in some small part by the world around them.

In Lebanon, the nightmare of this war paralleled familial breakdown in many ways. The illusion of a peaceful, pluralistic society with all groups sharing an equal civil presence was shattered when Sunni, Druze, Catholic, Shiite, and Palestinian militias clashed in the streets, and foreign armies joined in the confusion. The subsequent division of Beirut into the Muslim west and the Christian east was the dramatic eruption of years of unresolved tensions, and no family was left untouched by the resulting violence.

In Lina's world, this is all backdrop to the tensions of her Maronite Catholic family: war is a brooding, menacing character just off-camera that makes its presence known through thundering explosions and the words of young militia boys carrying Kalishnakovs. The battles she directly experiences are much closer to home. Her mother and father's marriage is quickly deteriorating as her father's gambling addiction and violent tendencies place the family in a dire financial situation. Her pregnant mother pleads with him to leave his gambling behind, even inviting a priest as witness to his promise to abstain. His solution is to repeatedly turn to his sister, Lina's sadistic aunt Yvonne-a brooding, heavily made-up dragon lady who looms over the family-for additional funds to feed his habit. The matriarch of the disintegrating clan, she refuses to help, though she clearly has enough to gamble away herself, humiliating him in the process.

Lina's only escape from the corruption of the adults is her bond with Yvonne's maid, the Syrian teenager Sihab. Lina's family discourages her friendship with Sihab, but Lina is undeterred, telling Sihab, “We are the same, you and I”-words that will return to haunt her. One day, as the family is eating dinner together and Yvonne takes turns degrading everyone at the table whilst repeatedly insulting Sihab, Lina overturns the food on the table and locks herself in the bathroom in a dramatic outburst of solidarity. She fills the sink and submerges her head underneath the water, an action she repeats throughout the film. Underneath the water, she escapes the sounds of the battle raging outside as her father tries to bang down the door, and her mother pleads with him to stop.

Sihab too tries to escape the chaos of Lina's family. Being a few years older than Lina, Sihab has discovered that boys with cars can take her away from Yvonne's cruel gaze. Sihab lets her tag along on a few of her adventures, giving Lina her first glimpse of sexuality. The war is nowhere in sight here, just the open road, the shining sun; the oppressive shadows of the crumbling apartment buildings and the thundering sounds of shells crashing into them have disappeared, if momentarily. The girls could be anywhere. Sihab turns up Blondie's “Heart of Glass” on the radio and dances around in the front seat, dangling her arms and then, precariously, half of her body out the window. For a while, it seems that Lina's friendship with Sihab will be the sole consistency in a chaotic world, an escape from the corruption of the adults. However, when Sihab confesses to Lina that she plans to run away with her boyfriend and get married, Lina refuses to help her. How could she let her most precious friend escape?

There is a river in Beirut called “Nahr El-Kelb,” or “Dog River.” Beside this river, carved on the rocky cliffs, you can read inscriptions of Egyptian Pharaohs, Assyrian kings and Roman commanders. One tablet tells of the entry into Damascus of General Gouraud's troops in 1920, and some of the most recent celebrate the 1946 evacuation of foreign troops in the wake of Lebanon's independence in 1943, and Israel in 2000. The Dog River speaks of the history of Lebanon, a meeting ground between east and west, the congregation of foreign armies in this place since time immemorial.

It's no accident that Lina's dearest friend and savior Sihab is not Lebanese. Syria, Sihab's native land, is not inscribed beside the river, as it is well understood that Syria still occupies Lebanon. The history between the two countries is complicated, as is the history of all nations in the Middle East. The very idea of a nation-state is one imported from the west. Most of these countries were joined under one empire or another for millennia. For a long time, Lebanon and Syria were considered one place-Greater Syria. The decision to make Lebanon a separate country has a controversial history that involved a new questioning of identity along the lines of nationalism, religion, and even ethnicity that are only really as old as this idea of the nation-state. The two countries are still linked in many ways, and would be regardless of the occupation-they are sisters with a very problematic relationship.

Lina and Sihab's relationship traces the complexities and confusion of the war-the loyalties between friends and neighbors as fragile and corrupted as the relationships between foreign occupiers and their complicit militias. In trying to keep Sihab from leaving her beleaguered family, Lina has isolated both of them, as Sihab will not forgive her for informing Yvonne of her plans to escape. Hence the corruption of the world of adults has seeped into Lina's world, as she realizes her own cruelty and selfishness.

When Sihab screams that the two are not the same, that they never will be, we see the painful separation of Lebanon from the rest of the Arab world. Lebanon felt as though everyone turned their backs on them, while battle tore through the streets of its cities and villages for nearly 20 years. When Lina loses her Syrian friend, the battlefield moves closer to home, and she is completely alone in her fight.

The film ends with the moment of Sihab's escape. We are left with no solution as the battle of Lina's family and the war itself rage on, regardless of the casualties. No epilogue is given for either girl-there is only a fade to black. In Lebanon today, the situation is similar. Many of the political inequalities that existed there before the war are still present. There is the feeling of disquiet in downtown Beirut's newly remodeled hotels. Somehow, one gets the impression that this is a thin, shiny façade for a city still deeply in pain, trying to delude itself into thinking it will again be the “Paris of the Middle East.” No, it's the bullet ridden walls, the wrecked modernist cinema in Martyrs Square, and the abandoned skeletal buildings along the Green Line that speak to the reality of Lebanon. It is a scarred place where neighbors and friends killed each other, and now live side-by-side again, while history is kept quiet, questions remain unanswered, and resolution seems like a hopeless delusion.