Tramontane can mean “northern wind”, but is also the name of the lead character; in Arabic it is Rabih. The blind Lebanese singer and musician Barakat Jabbour takes the lead role in this interesting and distinctive if undeveloped feature debut, a kind of road-movie mystery. It is written and directed by Vatche Boulghourjian, the Lebanese film-maker whose career developed through the Cinéfondation at Cannes, and who was selected for Critics’ Week with this film.
Jabbour plays Rabih, a young man who is – like the actor himself – blind and a talented musician. He is the adopted son of Samar (Julia Kassar) and by that token the nephew of Julia’s brother Hisham (Toufic Barakat), a shady businessman. When Rabih is invited to tour Europe with his group, he needs a passport; the authorities tell him his ID is fake, and Rabih realises everything he has been told about how he was found as a baby is a lie. He goes on a slightly improbable road trip, to ask questions of Hisham’s suspicious, resentful friends and relatives, and discovers his identity can be found only by dredging up painful memories of the Lebanese civil war.
It is an intriguing process, although we are not given any twist-in-the-tail revelation. Eventually, perhaps inevitably, it is music itself which is the supposed revelation. Music is the philosophical solvent and the emollient, and the only personal truth that will ultimately make sense to Rabih and those who love him.
