The movie "Shib" tells the story of The Bedouin boy Shib who was killed by robbers during the journey of following his brother Hassei, and finally he began his own survival path alone, experiencing the growth process from boy to man.
Anyone who has swum the Red Sea knows that you cannot know its true depth
Not anyone named Heb can get to the seabed, my boy
Between brothers, the upside down greets each other
And in the year of the crown, we must become the helpers of justice
The friendship of the wolf's ambitious man
You can't expect success
When you face death
They won't be around you
At the beginning of the film, Shib's father condenses the wisdom of life with poetic teachings and allows the audience to see the Bedouin code of existence. The story takes place during World War I, when Ottoman Turkey, an Allied power, went to war with the Anglo-French Allies, while the Ottoman revolutionaries were vying for power in their own country. The revolutionary Malegi and The British soldiers were ordered to blow up the Ottoman railway, and they asked for help from the local Bedouins as guides, and the chief ordered Hassein to help them. Seeing his brother walking with them, Heb, who was worried about his brother, followed the past. On the way they are robbed, both the Englishman and his brother are killed, and Heb, alone, completes his revenge for his brother in survival.
The film downplays the political and historical environment description of the story, and interprets the bedouin survival conflict in the harsh and complex environment from the perspective and growth experience of the boy Shib, reflecting the tenacious bravery, hospitable qualities of the Bedouins and the spirit of adhering to independence and loyalty to the family tribe.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the world in which Heeb lived: the harsh desert environment and the shock of modern society</h1>
The long-term shots and long-distance music of the film directly show the desolation and depth of the vast desert, and visually make people feel that it is not easy for life to survive in this natural environment. In the driest places, water is the source of life and the most precious resource. The life scene at the beginning of the story and the battle scene behind it both take place next to the well, born or died because of the water, and a cruel struggle for survival is staged.
Shib was a Bedouin child, a literate age in the traditional sense of other ethnic groups, and his education was taught shooting and fighting by his brother Hassain. The elders of the Nightfall Clan were playing cards, while Hassein heard outsiders coming in the noise. The younger brother's education and the brother's high vigilance show that the Bedouins are constantly facing battle.
The appearance of the British broke the peaceful life of the tribe, blonde hair, blue eyes, incomprehensible language, lighters that could make fires, pocket watches that accurately measured time, and Heb's curious eyes on the British could feel the difference in the outside world. The hospitality of the Bedouins is evident: first the lamb was slaughtered and cooked, the British threw away the lamb when they were too bad to eat, and then after separating from the British and Malegi, the brothers did not trust them and followed.
The camel and the train appear in the same scene later in the film, and the secret of the wooden box used as a suspense for the story is opened after the British died: it was the detonator that the British army wanted to blow up the Ottoman railway. The civilization of modern society and the ancient traditions of the Bedouin people inadvertently collide, and the fate of the far-flung Heb is invisibly involved in the external torrent of war.
The film gives The story of Shib to the cultural customs of the desert and at the same time throws itself into the grand background of the First World War, which makes the theme of survival and revenge to be expressed have a deeper and grander connotation, becoming a magnificent Arab epic.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the clash of existentialism that demonstrates the insistence on the spirit of independence</h1>
The journey that led the Way for the British was fraught with danger, and a deadly struggle between the robbers and the Heb brothers was staged.
Water was the most precious thing in the desert, and the robbers killed their fellow revolutionaries, destroyed the Roman well they were looking for, and set up an ambush in the canyon by the next well, and the bandits' actions all revealed their cunning and ferocity. His brother Hassein fought against the robbers and protected Shib with his tenacity and bravery, and he used reality to tell Himb the survival of the "weak and the strong".
In fact, this tragedy could have been avoided, the revolutionary Malegi found that his people were mutilated and the number of robbers was large, he wanted to return to ask more people to complete the task, but the British soldiers insisted on moving forward. His quarrel with the British was a clash between collectivism in Arab culture and individual heroism in Western culture.
When his brother Hassein was shot, Heb, who had lost his protection, had to learn to survive on his own. He stumbled into the well, struggled desperately in the well, and later climbed out of the well, with a strong desire to survive. When he and the bandit leader meet again at the well, the conflict of survival recurs: the weak Shib cannot get out of the desert without the help of the robbers, and the wounded robbers cannot live without the help of the robbers. They are dependent on each other, and although for Shib the robber is still his brother-killer, the common need to survive forces him and the robber to "warm up together".
Heb sat on the robber's camel, who also taught him how to use the stars to discern directions in the night, and after spending time with the robbers, he learned the reason for his downfall— because the Ottoman Empire built a railway on the traditional pilgrimage routes in the Arab world, people who once thought of pilgrims as guides had to find new ways to make a living.
Later in the film, the robber makes a deal with a Turkish officer at the train station, and it can be seen that in this food chain of the weak and the strong, the robber is not at the top, he is begging for food from the Ottoman Empire, which is stronger than himself. The survival conflict between the kind and friendly Bedouins and the murderous and unprincipled bandits in the film is a conflict between a self-reliant nomadic culture and a predatory culture that robs others, and on the other hand, it also reflects the bedouin spirit of independent survival in the Arab world.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Heeb's baptism of growth: revenge to complete loyalty to a blood tribe</h1>
At the beginning of the film, Shib looks at the tribal mark incomprehensibly, and when he encounters danger, his brother Hassein tells him to hide high, and the tribesmen will come to his rescue. In the end, Shib buried his brother's body and carved a tribal mark on the stone. The Bedouin culture believes that without the family and tribe, the individual will not receive any protection, the tribe is the destination and the object of loyalty of the Bedouin spiritual identity, and Shib's journey is undoubtedly his journey to find a sense of tribal belonging.
On the way, when cross-examined by the revolutionaries, Heb, who did not know the good and evil of the other side, cleverly cooperated with the lies of the robbers. The next day he saw the corpses of revolutionaries strewn across the railroad, and he saw robbers trading with Ottoman officers: he had exchanged the objects he had obtained by killing the Hebs and the British for silver coins. The unscrupulous robbers are full of lies, and when they see that the officers have doubts about Hibb's identity, the robbers tell the lie of "he is my son" to protect Hibb. This lie provoked Heb's "wolf nature", and the moment he refused the Reward of Silver by the Ottoman officers, it represented his refusal to belong to the same category as the robbers, and the teachings of his father in his mind also made him realize that he must learn to "betray".
Heeb, who walked out the door, pulled out his pistol and pointed it at the robber. Summoned by the flames of revenge and tribal blood, he pulled the trigger and killed the robber who was both his benefactor and enemy. Completing his loyalty to his own bloodline tribe in betrayal, Heb completed his adult baptism. Riding the robber's camel again, the still thin Shib successfully got the camel up, which contrasted with his previous inability to get the camel to get up and walk, symbolizing that he began to control his wandering fate.
At the end of the film, Shib watches the roaring train on a camel, and he looks for his way home along the tracks, but he does not believe that the railway built by the Ottoman Empire can lead him to his homeland deep in the desert. So Shib deviated from the direction of the railroad tracks and walked toward the mountains in the distance. Heb, who has grown up, slowly and calmly enters the free world of the Bedouin people...