Love is queer in times of civil war. In this experimental documentary essay by Lebanese-Armenian filmmaker and archivist Chantal Partamian, excerpts from a pornographic film reel—found in the rubble of a Beirut devastated by the destructive violence of armed conflict—are gradually revealed to us. These erotic images stand in stark contrast to footage of the civil war, shot on video and often broadcast on local television in a spectacular manner.

At first, the vinegar-damaged reel shows the bodies of two women engaging in the game of seduction and eroticism. While one might assume that this pornographic film was originally intended for a male audience, it quickly becomes clear that Partamian reclaims these images to subvert the male gaze and celebrate queer love. Each frame is manually altered using various chemical processes, erasing the male presence in order to highlight the two feminine bodies and their forbidden, seductive complicity. A certain sensuality thus emerges from this pornographic footage, which the filmmaker transforms into raw material in an aesthetic repurposing as creative as it is subversive.

Meanwhile, hooded male bodies threaten the city, wandering through the urban landscape armed with phallic weaponry—a reminder of the oppressive, macho violence inherent in all war machines. These video images are also manipulated and subverted by Partamian, in a defiant gesture that turns news footage into video art. The soldiers twist, pixelate, and ultimately dissolve into a victorious analog cathodic abstraction.

Finally, the original soundtrack composed by Nada Zanhour, aka ncx3, also contributes to this sense of resistance against military oppression. It blends analog synthesizers with digital sounds, echoing the visual techniques employed by the filmmaker. These sounds are at once sinister, threatening, and triumphant. It is one of the most terrifying and mesmerizing pieces of music I have heard in a long time.

With Traces, Chantal Partamian delivers a singular documentary work—somewhere between experimental cinema and video art—that celebrates the resilience of Lebanon’s queer communities, long resisting the efforts of homophobic regimes to erase and bury them. “Make love, not war,” they used to say—so let us say it again today, and forever.

Frédéric Savard
Archivist and programmer