“A photograph does not show the flies nor the thick white smell of death. Neither does it show how you must jump over bodies as you walk along from one corpse to the next.” The quotation by Jean Genet announces the subject of this poetic film by Lebanese filmmaker Maher Abi Samra. A meditation on death and destruction, it takes on the paradoxical task of representing the unrepresentable. A small collection of extended takes depicts the aftermath of the 2006 bombing of Beirut in a way that manages to make the horror palpable without relying on the sensationalistic imagery prevalent in the mainstream media. A haunting, infernal beauty emerges from depictions of rescue workers digging through rubble, of a rough drive through partially lit bombed streets, and of empty coffins being loaded onto a truck, emphasizing the existential horror of the devastation.  AM