Review:  Ugly realities of refugee camp fills ‘A World Not Ours’

Alternately moving and frustrating, Mahdi Fleifel’s 2012 documentary, “A World Not Ours,” is receiving a limited theatrical release now, after it has played on the festival circuit and aired on PBS.

Fleifel combines more than 20 years of home movies, material he shot himself and archival news footage to explore life in Ain el-Heweh, whose name translates to Sweet Spring. The Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon houses more than 70,000 people in 1 square kilometer. Although his extended family has lived there for more than 60 years, Fleifel’s immediate family emigrated. He grew up in Dubai and Denmark, making him both an insider and outsider in Lebanon.

Fleifel is an engaging narrator, and “A World Not Ours” is strongest when he connects with the bitter cycle of poverty, frustration and hopelessness that the inhabitants of Ain el-Heweh endure. The interviews with his friends, uncle and grandfather convey an almost-tangible despair. His best friend, Abu Iyad, bitterly sums up his situation: “No future, no work, no education, no nothing!”

As a boy, Fleifel enjoyed visiting the camp the way other children enjoy amusement parks; as an adult, he struggles to grasp the ugly realities of that familiar terrain.

But Fleifel sometimes loses the thread of his narrative, jumping back and forth haphazardly among the decades and burying poignant stories in repeated shots of people riding scooters down alleyways. A good editor could have easily turned the same footage into a more polished and unified presentation.

Although not a perfect film, “A World Not Ours” does turn faceless statistics about the plight of refugees into an immediate human tragedy.

“A World Not Ours.”

No MPAA rating.

1 hour, 33 minutes.

Playing: Laemmle’s Town Center 5, Encino