Leila and the Wolves: A Forgotten Masterpiece Rediscovered

by

Leila and the Wolves just got its first-ever U.S. theatrical with a restored 40th anniversary edition, and it’s an important moment in cinematic history. It’s yet another example that the traditional “canon” of great cinema has a Western bias that has largely neglected the Third World. The Lebanese film by Heiny Srour is a groundbreaking epic of Arab cinema, what Srour called, “An archaeological excavation of the collective memory of women of the Middle East. I wanted to rewrite history from a female and feminist point of view.” And that she does, presenting a complicated and scathing critique of imperialism and patriarchy while also documenting 50 years of Palestinian and Lebanese struggles.

From a Western lens, Leila and the Wolves is “experimental,” but its unique structure reflects the art history of the region, with its focus on mosaics, repetition, and patterned tapestries. It follows a Lebanese woman as she prepares for an art exhibition in London that focuses on the history of violence against and occupation of Palestine and Lebanon. The film finds her literally walking through moments of that history, almost like an apparition, visiting women from the 1920s through the ’70s. It’s not a sci-fi time travel film, though, but rather one woman’s subconscious journey through the history of her culture. As Srour said of the film’s format:

People from developing countries should abandon the notion that films should be structured like 19th-century Western bourgeois novels, which emphasize harmony. Our societies have been disrupted and fragmented by colonial rule to such an extent that they don’t fit neatly into these narratives. Film should acknowledge the vast social disparities present in our communities.

Leila Gives Us a History Lesson

Nabila Zeitouni stars as the titular Leila, among multiple other characters throughout history, and she partly narrates the film. She even casts her partner, played by Rafik Ali Ahmad, in different roles throughout history. Her journey through the past (which is complemented by archival documentary footage) is spurred by the art exhibition and its many photographs of armed struggle over the years. She asks Rafik why he chose no pictures with women in them, and he responds, “In those days, women had nothing to do with politics.” So, in a sense, Leila and the Wolves simply consists of a woman giving a man a history lesson.

It’s a gorgeously filmed lesson, establishing different time periods with incredible shots of Leila walking along the land, on the beach, through stone villages and destroyed towns. Charley Recors and Curtis Clark’s cinematography is excellent, with incredibly intelligent and graceful shots that combine ideas. Women in black abayas and niqabs sit in a semicircle in the sand of a beautiful beach on a sunny day; the camera pans across their motionless bodies, finally leaving them and revealing sunbathing men and other men in bathing suits playing in the water. It’s a remarkable statement, and we return to the group of women throughout the film as women’s rights develop over the decades.

Fighting Women

It’s fascinating how Srour shows the treatment of women over six decades or so, and how they exist in a sort of lose-lose situation. Older women scold their daughters for not being married or not having enough children. A woman is beaten by her husband, and her sister tells her how to be a better wife. Women are terrified of their husbands leaving them, and we see a woman in her empty house after her husband divorces her and takes everything, including their five children. The British, Israeli, and other oppressors treat the Arab women terribly, but are they any more free among the husbands and fathers who control their lives? When women do join men in the revolutionary fight, taking up arms and risking their lives, they are demeaned and condescended to. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.

Leila and the Wolves is at its most thrilling when it shows the revolutionary efforts of the Lebanese and Palestinian women. There are incredible sequences showing the women assisting in rebellions against the British, throwing rocks and potted plants from their balconies at soldiers who are chasing the freedom fighters. They boil a giant pot of oil and pour it over the soldiers’ heads. They scrape bullets against stones because they are too big for the guns the men have. They use a wedding to smuggle guns and ammunition. They sing certain songs to alert others that soldiers are coming. Eventually, they straight-up join the fight and die in the streets.

The troubling question arises: what are they fighting for? Are they fighting for their land and freedom? What freedom? Leila and the Wolves remind us that resistance and revolutionary action can not just be directed at the oppressors and the powers that be, but must also be turned inward, because patriarchy is merely imperialism at home.

The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived (50 Years Later)

Leila and the Wolves is screening along with an invaluable documentary that Heiny Srour made in the early 1970s, a film which offers a positive corrective to the problematic questions of Leila and the Wolves. The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived depicts a movement that incorporated feminism into its revolutionary organization. The Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG) was a short-lived Arab-Marxist group which, for a while, successfully fought off British occupiers and the powerful Sultan of Oman in the governorate of Dhofar. They were essentially a post-feminist evolution of the Dhofar Liberation Front, and the inclusion of women is credited to their success.

As The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived notes, “It is the only document in the world shot deep inside what was formerly known as the Liberated Area of the province of Dhofar in the Sultanate of Oman​​​​​​​.” Srour and her crew had to walk “800 kilometers through deserts and mountains, under bombing from the British Royal Air Force,” in order to access that area and film the PFLOAG. The result is an extremely rare and crucial look at an intellectually advanced revolutionary movement, with fascinating interviews.

Of course, the PFLOAG was defeated with help from the Western bloc, with the United States, England, Oman, and other oil-hungry parties dividing the movement with an offer of amnesty, an economic blockade, and a lot of murder. Nonetheless, the group (and The Hour of Liberation has Arrived) should serve as a model for future acts of resistance, something we desperately need at the moment. So run to see this film and Leila and the Wolves, which is now screening at the theaters below courtesy of Several Futures. Find more showtimes and info here.

New York @ BAM Cinemas: March 14–20

with Heiny Srour in person at the following screenings:

Sunday, March 16 – 2pm (presented by Jewish Voices for Peace)

*In addition to the weeklong theatrical run of LEILA AND THE WOLVES,

BAM will also screen Srour’s THE HOUR OF LIBERATION HAS ARRIVED

Los Angeles @ Mezzanine at 2220 Arts: March 17 *with Srour in person

Toronto, CA @ TIFF: April 5

Dallas @ SPACY: April 7

Vancouver, CA @ The Cinematheque: April 11, 13 & 26

Chicago @ Doc Films: April 12

Seattle @ The Beacon: May 2 & 4

Cleveland @ Cleveland Institute of Art: May 4

Coming Soon: Austin, Washington D.C., Detroit & more

Read More

2025-03-16 01:21