Steven Spielberg shot ET with the camera at waist height, the height of a child.
The thinkingbeing that the view will subconsciously resonate with the young audience and will also tapinto the older viewers’ inner child.With his debut, a slow burning coming of age western,Naji Abu Nowar attempts something similar.
The eponymous boy (Al-Hwietet) is only ten or so when an English soldier (James Fox)enters his tribe’s small camp; up until this point we had no idea when this story is set but oneglance at the soldier’s uniform tells us it’s WWI. It’s here that Naji Abu Nowar channels hisinner Spielberg: Theeb, his line of sight blocked by his fellow tribesmen as they rise to greetthe soldier, moves about the tent, getting only glimpses of this strange man between the legsand swaying cloaks of his elders. It’s a simple scene beautifully done - suddenly we’re thislittle boy and we can fully understand his strange actions as the story progresses.
Theeb’s brother Hussein (Al-Sweilhiyeen) is to be the soldier’s guide in looking for anabandoned well on a forgotten track deep in the desert, long out of use since the arrival of the‘iron donkey’ – the railroad. Theeb follows the party into the desert and when they are setupon by a rival tribe, the boy is forced to do the unthinkable to survive…
Nowar keeps us on an uneven footing. There’s an opening narration by the tribe’s sheik who,when the story begins, we learn is already dead. He sets up the soldier as this mysteriousalien with whom Theeb begins to form a friendship with, but that turns sour. By the midpoint,Theeb has changed into a story entirely different from the one that was set up earlier. Thiskeeps one guessing.Theeb moves slow, which highlights the emphasis Nowar places on sound. In the middle of asilent desert, every sound is magnified. The ping when a bullet hits a tin target echoes aroundthe valley, the crunch of hard sand under the camel’s hoof, the gunshot in a well. But this isnot just decoration as Nowar uses the environment sound to heighten tension: the enemytribe’s haunting chant as they try to scare Hussein and Theeb from their cliff hiding place, thesound of the unseen train as it chugs to a stop during a tense standoff does the job of anMorricone score.
The largely amateur cast do an impeccable job.
