In Review Online • by Michael Sicinski
The Arab — Malek Bensmaïl [IFFR ’26 Review]
Despite being so nondescript, the title of The Arab actually communicates quite a lot. In the singular nominative, it reduces a specific man or woman to their ethnicity. (“Here comes the Arab.”) But as a collective, it speaks to an entire civilization. (“What is to become of the Arab ?”) Algerian director Malek Bensmaïl’s new film explores the complicated slippage between these two identities, and in particular the ways they have haunted the Western imagination…