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Dawn of the World (L'Aube du monde)

Dawn of the World (L'Aube du monde)

Movie · 2008 · 5 people

Dawn of the World (L'Aube du monde in French) is a 2008 French-German co-production written and directed by Iraqi-French filmmaker Abbas Fahdel. Shot in Arabic and running about ninety-five minutes, the film blends war drama with romance in a single story, and it is counted among the Iraqi films that have travelled furthest on the international market.

The story unfolds in the Ahwar marshes of southern Iraq. Through a love story, Fahdel traces the layered damage that the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War and the 1991 uprisings inflicted on the area. Some accounts place the Garden of Eden here, and the film makes the ruin of that landscape its central subject. Hiam Abbass stars alongside Hafsia Herzi, the young actress who first drew attention at the Venice Film Festival; Karim Saleh also appears in the cast.

The screenplay draws in part on the real story of a childhood friend of the director who vanished during the war. Because security conditions ruled out filming in Iraq, the production moved to Egypt. After screening at festivals in France, South Korea, Belgium, Portugal and the United Arab Emirates, its distribution rights were sold to nearly twenty countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, Lebanon, India and Indonesia.

DirectorAbbas Fahdel

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Hiyam Abbas Hiyam Abbas Film actor · 65 years old Mastour's mother Hafsia Herzi Hafsia Herzi Film actor · 39 years old zahra Karim Saleh Waleed Abou El Magd Seyid Recep

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Through different eyes

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

The setting the film chooses is a thesis in itself: the Ahwar marshes of southern Iraq. Fahdel traces the layered destruction left by the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War and the 1991 uprisings through a love story and the ruin of a landscape. Putting at its centre the devastation of a land that some accounts identify as the Garden of Eden is a reminder that wars destroy not only people but a whole living environment and its memory. Stacking three successive disasters onto one region offers a frame that makes Iraq's recent history understandable to outsiders as well.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Placing a war drama inside a single love story is Fahdel's boldest and riskiest choice. When it works, the structure makes an abstract historical catastrophe concrete by narrowing it to the fate of a few people; when it doesn't, the romance is too narrow a frame to carry the region's layered tragedy. In my view the film swings between those two poles. The script draws partly on the real story of a childhood friend of the director who vanished in the war, which lends the story a personal weight. Shooting in Egypt because of security conditions, however, makes the question of authenticity unavoidable in a film that treats the marshes almost as a character.

Action & Thriller Fan Puts pace, tension and set pieces first; little patience for slow drama.

If you see the war film label and expect battle scenes, you may be knocking on the wrong door. The film tells its war mostly through the ruin left in the region and through a love story. Over ninety-five minutes, sorrow outweighs tension. Hard going if you have no patience for slow drama, but the right pick if you want a film that tells the cost of war in a quiet voice.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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