Zozo: a Review

Zozo (2005) is a swedish-lebanese film based on the swedish-lebanese director's experience immigrating to sweden during the lebanese civil war.



considering the setting of the movie, this is obviously a sad film... so watch it alone if you have ever promised yourself you'd never let them see you cry... or you can desensitize yourself beforehand by shooting a bunny rabbit in the face... with a rocket launcher...

thankfully the director does inject some humor into the film... the grandfather is hallaarious every time he opens his mouth and the scenes with Zozo and the baby chick would always leave me wanting more...

SPOILER ALERT. to read text, highlight the space below:

immediately after watching the film, i was not satisfied with the ending... i felt it was very abrupt and that it left a lot of issues unresolved... after a few minutes though i began to think that the point of the film was not the specific struggles that Zozo faced in the movie or to answer the question "what will happen to Zozo?"
instead, the point of the movie for me was to show how Zozo's experience of losing his family and witnessing the horrors of the conflict in his homeland has affected him... specifically how he deals with the conflicts he faces in the present and will face in the future...

two more things i want to say about this movie... one: the events in the movie are seen from the perspective of Zozo who is still only about 10 years old... therefore, you won't learn much about the history of the war... and two: i was really impressed with the production value... a lot of effort has been put into this film and it shows...

so bottom line, i recommend this movie for people who enjoy sad movies and care more for interesting characters and character development than they do for plot...

thanks to danabananana for the recommendation... danabananana also recommends taking prozac and watching a movie like Yes Man immediately afterwards...