Rounds

Rounds (Barmeh) is a video featuring Rabih Mroué, who appears as a strangely familiar driver, filmed steering through the streets of the city. Beirut is mentioned, evoked through the driver’s stories and through sound, but never seen. Invisible in overexposed whiteness, Beirut escapes definition. However, its presence is confirmed through the ongoing discourse. Like his driving, Mroué’s stories spin in a circle. He seems a ghost, inseparable from his car, haunting the streets of a city where a reconstruction project is in progress.

Underlying these thoughts about the car and the road system is also a reflection on the modernisation project undertaken in that strange postwar period.