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CibbuanoThe Combination
February 9th 2010 10:24
There was a lot of controversy surrounding this film when it first came out, with some theatres in Sydney's western suburbs even erupting into violence and causing the film to be pulled from some venues. It seems strange that movies like The Combination can encourage violence amongst the very people they seek to educate, it suggests that the probelms in these subcultures are far too ingrained to be fixed by cautionary art, but I think films like this are a good start nonetheless. Part of the issue is the attitude of the average uninvolved Anglo-Australian... most people hear about crimes involving Lebanese youths and the part that seems most relevant to them is the ethnicity of the perpetrator rather than the crime itself. This film goes some way towards addressing this kind of blinkered prejudice and how it feeds the very problems that cause it... it's a vicious cycle and writer/actor George Basha is to be commended for putting it out there in all it's glory, and for suggesting how we might break this cycle.
John (George Basha) is a Lebanese-Australian man and reformed criminal who has just finished serving time in gaol. He comes home to his family in Sydney's western suburbs and begins to observe his younger brother, Charlie (Firass Dirani), heading towards a similar life of crime. Charlie and his friends are also locked in an ongoing racial feud with some Anglo-Australian kids at their school, a feud that is starting to spiral dangerously out of control. Meanwhile, John enters into a relationship with Sydney (Clare Bowen), whose Anglo-Australian parents disapprove of their interracial coupling.
The 'combination' of the title obliquely refers to the Middle Eastern invention of Algebra, a literal translation of which apparently means to 'fix something that's broken'. The 'combination' could also just as easily refer to the combination of hatred and prejudice that turns Lebanese-Australian youth into such a maligned and criminally-inclined subculture. Charlie initially doesn't want to fight Scott (the ringleader of the 'Aussie' kids) but his Lebanese friends encourage and pressure him into it by making it into a race thing. It soon becomes an escalating cycle, and the bigger it becomes the bigger it's pull is on those who seek to resist it. Even John, who tries so vehemently to prevent his brother from being sucked into this life, seems powerless to resist the wider pull of violence when the stakes become too big to ignore.
George Basha is unflinchingly honest about depicting how this works, he doesn't pull any punches about it - there are problems with young Lebanese men in Australia, their testosterone runs high and they want easy money, but Basha is also passionate about showing us the reasons behind this and how it can be fixed. It's no good for Anglo-Australians to reject the Lebanese and call them the problem, that isn't going to solve anything. A good deal of the insular Lebanese attitude comes from not feeling included by Anglo-Australians... if we don't count them as one of 'us' then they become one of 'them', it's as simple as that. All this racial antagonism is a two way street, and the more we feed into it the worse it gets. There's a point in the movie where George Basha's character, John, is asked if he considers himself Australian and he answers in frustration that he's neither truly Australian or Lebanese as both sides consider him to be the other. There's also a much-needed scene that juxtaposes the character Sydney enjoying good Lebanese culture (the larger Lebanese community enjoying a good time in a Lebanese restaurant/club) with bad Lebanese culture (the very visible minority robbing a general store), demonstrating how things could be vs. what most Australians think is the truth.
The Combination is a very intelligent movie, combining the entertainment factor of a straight-up gangster flick with a very real contemporary issue that currently only seems to be getting worse. As such, it feels a lot like Australia's answer to American History X and Boyz n the Hood - except The Combination's relevance to our own problems makes it a lot more important.
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