As the documentaryBye Bye Tiberiasbegins, images of a gigantic lake fill the screen. The lake is located in the Israeli village of Deir Hanna, where much of directorLina Soualem’s family lives. Soualem notes via narration that she visited this watery locale as a child with her mother,Hiam Abbass, an actor best known to American audiencesfor her prominent role inSuccession. Her extensive connections between this lake and Abbass lead to Soualem observing that to slip into that water is to be “immersed in mother’s story.” Shortly after that, this filmmaker recalls a quote her mother would always say whenever she inquired about their family history:“Don’t open the gate to past sorrows.”
It’s a phrase that Abbass learned from her mother, who learned it from her mother, and so on. WithBye Bye Tiberias, Soualem has crafted an entire feature about unearthing the past, right down to chronicling the circumstances that led to Abbass leaving Deir Hanna to pursue her acting dreams. It’s uncomfortable to confront the past. But it is urgently important to do so, especially given that Soualem’s family is intertwined with the past of Palestine, a country and people under constant threat of extermination.Bye Bye Tiberiasworks as a sweeping ode to the importance of witnessing, but it impressively functions just as well as a movingly intimate exploration of the past Abbass has often bottled up.
Bye Bye Tiberias
Years after leaving her Palestinian village to pursue an acting career in France, Hiam Abbass returns home with her daughter, in this intimate documentary about four generations of women and their shared legacy of separation.
How Does ‘Bye Bye Tiberias’ Tell Its Story?
ForBye Bye Tiberias, director/cinematographer Soualem leans heavily on original footage she and fellow cinematographersFrida Marzoukand Thomas Brémond capture on voyages to Deir Hanna.These images largely focus on Hiam Abbass, with Soualem largely kept as an off-screen narrative presence until the final half-hour of the movie. This detail quietly emphasizes howBye Bye Tiberiasis a story about the past while also providing incredibly stirring imagery of Abbass soaking in all the nuances of the village that birthed her. Often, this actor is totally silent, sitting and absorbing the world around her. Abbass has frequently told her daughter not to confront the past and now the camera is capturing this performer being towered over by physical manifestations of her childhood.
Beyond just new footage, though,Bye Bye Tiberiasalso makes effective use of archival footage in the form of home videos of key family events like weddings or Soualem as a child visiting her relatives in Deir Hanna. Much likeDick Johnson Is Dead,Bye Bye Tiberiasuncovers the long-term deep emotional power of what may initially look like ramshackle camcorder footage. Years removed from when these moments were captured on film, they’re now preservations of lives lost, years that flickered by, locations that no longer exist. Brought to life with all the imperfect artifacts of actual home video footage,these raw looks into the past provide a bittersweet visual contrast to the more professionally shot modern-day sequences.
Best of all, though, Soualem’s emphasis on home movies and general archival footage withinBye Bye Tiberiasallows glimpses into nonchalant parts of Palestinian existence. One of Soualem’s most striking pieces of narration is when she notes that capturing footage of Deir Hanna is important since it’s a “place that may disappear into oblivion.”Constant threats of annihilation lurk in the margins ofBye Bye Tiberias, as seen in a scene where Abbass nonchalantly explains the source of the constant sound of airplanes flying around Deir Hanna. Those noises belong to Israeli military planes, which are always circling the village and its inhabitants, looming over their everyday lives.
These haunting parts of reality inform whyBye Bye Tiberiasfocuses so heavily on just highlighting ordinary slices of Palestinian existence. The anguish of this population isn’t ignored, as seen by Soualem recounting her great-grandmother’s testimony of being displaced by Israeli forces. However, this filmmaker also portrays bursts of joy or relaxed recreation within these lives as well. A notable piece of archival footage simply depicts Palestinian kids at a nun’s school playing volleyball, while lots of newly shot modern-day footage depicts Abbass laughing with her sisters. One of the most moving sequences in the entire picture shows Soualem and her extended family just trying to take a group photo, only to constantly burst into giggles over various problems getting everyone organized.Bye Bye Tiberiasand its creators are well aware of the inhumane and colonizing practices that have ripped away Soualem’s family and turned her ancestor’s past into a mystery. Those genocidal practices continue well into the modern world. In the face of these staggering horrors,Tiberiasemphasizes the emotional variety of Palestinian existence, in the process creating a richly human piece of documentary cinema.
‘Bye Bye Tiberias’ Has an Unorthodox Structure And is All the Better For It
In hindsight, one of the greatest qualities ofBye Bye Tiberiasis its staunch refusal to filter the movie through a structure evocative of traditional narrative films. The movie doesn’t begin, for instance, with a piece of extreme conflict between Soualem and Abbass that gets resolved by the end after their trip to Deir Hanna. Instead,Bye Bye Tiberiashas a more free-flowing design reflective of the complicated ways the past can intertwine with the present. It’s a quality that also encapsulates the messiness of reckoning with familial trauma. Soualem and Abbass will undoubtedly be reckoning with their family’s history long after this documentary is released.
Adhering to a more rigid structure or the default norms of many documentaries (like talking-head interviews) would’ve undercut the rawness of footage like Abbass, in response to the death of her mother, remarking “I don’t know how to grieve for a mother.” You can feel the pain emanating off the screen, to the point that one briefly feels intrusive for gazing upon Abbass in this moment of extreme vulnerability. It’s an expression of pain caught with intimate camerawork in a seemingly on the fly manner.It’s also a moment crystallizing how the on-screen testimonies are dictating the form ofBye Bye Tiberias, not the other way around. Soualem’s commitment to capturing her family’s experiences in a non-traditional structure ensures thatBye Bye Tiberiasresonates as a motion picture rooted deeply in harrowing reality.
People fade. Locations crumble. Populations are displaced. The horrors of reality often erase individuals and places that seemed unmovable before. But footage endures, as do memories and witness testimony. Those elements intertwine inBye Bye Tiberiasand offer a clear path through “the gate to past sorrows.”After all, those past sorrows are often the backbones of today’s horrors.That’s just one of the many ideas thoughtfully explored by director Lina Soualem through a feature that, much like the lake that Soualem remembers from her childhood, powerfully immerses viewers in bygone eras.
Bye Bye Tiberias is a unique documentary that handles its painful subject with grace and care.
Bye Bye Tiberiasis now playing in select theaters in the U.S. Click below for showtimes.
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