IMAGE+NATION: Sirens

A sexual awakening and subsequent estrangement complicate the musical relationship of a soulful Shery Bechara (lead guitar) and live wire Lilas Mayassi (rhythm guitar), whose electric chemistry provides both the tension and potential death knell of their taboo-courting group. As they work through ideas, arguing about tempos and studying performances, their unspoken conflicts create an instability analogous to Lebanon’s so that love, art, and politics intertwine. Rita Baghdadi’s adrenaline-powered documentary has the coherence and cinematography of narrative film, the camera intimate, searching, staying with Shery and Lilas in spectacular landscapes and cramped kitchens doused in darkness by yet another power outage. The blare of Beirut’s sirens, literal and metaphorical, never far out of earshot. As controversies and tempers erupt, and a long-distance romance plucks at the heartstrings, two “tangled” women must decide what they’re willing to sacrifice.