“No one knows how the mountain war started, only how it ended,” one of the characters in The One Man Village says about the civil war battle that once destroyed his village. His memories of the war seem blurred and the same goes for the rest of the people we meet in Simon El Habre’s quiet, beautiful documentary. Like another recent Lebanese movie, Melodrama Habibi, the documentary deals with the war and how it has been remembered, but the setting and tone is quite different.
 
Semaan El Habre, a lively 50 year old,  is the only resident of the deserted village of Ain El Halazoun in Mount Lebanon. During the war, the dwellers of the small Christian village were displaced, and only Halazonoun has moved back permanently; the other villagers return to Ain El Halazoun during the day to work the land that is still theirs, always leaving again at night.

Semaan, who is the director’s uncle, alone breaks that pattern. Five years ago, he decided to return to the village for good and start a new life as a farmer in the house that he used to live in with his family. Semaan loves his simple rural life and hopes that he will inspire other former villagers to join him.
 
While he tells of life in the village, we follow the cheerful, energetic Semaan in his daily routines in the small farmhouse. In little action-packed scenes we see him cooking, gardening and taking care of his seven beloved cows, which he talks to like old friends.
 
We also hear the voices of the former residents as they come to the village. Painting a glorified, nostalgic picture of pre-war times, the old villagers are hit by a sudden amnesia when it comes to the war itself. They talk about it only reluctantly and give the impression of barely being able to recall the events. “God save us from the future,” one farmer says, in one of the films more powerful moments.
 
Director Simon El Habre believes that fear, rather than forgetfulness, explains the blurred memory of the villagers. “I wanted to show their fear, their hesitation and their limits,” he says. “Repression of memories is normal, but I don’t believe it is healthy. The villagers did not forget the war – in their heads it is actually not finished. The war is in their minds every day, but there is a fear of talking about it.”
 
In El Habre’s view, dealing with Lebanon’s past is crucial if the country is to move on. “After the war we were told not to talk about it in public because that could bring it back. But if we don’t talk about it, the problems of the war will not be solved,” he says. “To consider the war a taboo is keeping it alive.”
 
The film begins with the 34-year-old director’s own experiences in the village where much of his family once lived, and which he used to visit on weekends with his parents before fighting engulfed it. During the war he imagined that the villagers would return to their houses  as soon as the fighting ended. But as years went by and no one returned, save his uncle, El Habre started to wonder what was keeping them away, and making them only return as visitors.
 
“The people of Ain El Halazoun are living a double life,” he says. “They are still attached to their old houses and the image of the past, and that is why they go back. At the same time, they are not able to go back, also because of the past.”
 
The documentary is poetic investigation of sorts, examining the complicated dance of  memory and repression. The film’s slow pace and its many still frames of the mountain landscape create an atmosphere of something unsaid: behind every image lie stories that no one dares to touch. Indeed, the physicial setting of the village is one of the film’s most powerful characters, sometimes beautiful, sometimes harsh and – often – silent.

Even so, the character that propels the film is Semaan, and the contrast between his cheerful, charismatic demeanorand the abandoned village creates a surreal, almost fairytale-like air. With his charming, self-conscious “acting” before the camera he appears almost cast for the role.
 
The One Man Village, which is the director’s first feature documentary, has been screened at more than 30 local and international festivals and has garnered four prizes in Dubai, Monaco, Holland and Canada, including Best International Feature Documentary at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto.
 
Despite such recognition, El Habre considers his film a small step towards more openness about Lebanon’s past. “Cinema cannot solve the problem, but if the film can make people think about the situation, it is a start,” he says.
 
Simon El Habre’s The One Man Village will be screened in Metropolis Empire Sofil from October 15.