Personal Tragedy in Conflict

"Incendies" and "Retratos en un mar de mentiras" are two great examples of how conflict adversely affects not just society but individuals. By looking at the personal memory of Nawal and Marina. throughout both movies we see the constant struggle between militant groups and the individuals as well as the historical memories created by these struggles. The two most similar characters connecting these two movies are Marina and Nawal. It is shown in these films that they both have a very hard time adjusting back into society and will clearly always be affected by these events whether it be Marina's speaking problem or the strained relationship that Nawal has with her children because of the brutal events she witnessed and the way in which they were conceived. Their are no true government enacted reparations for these characters, they find alternative ways to deal with the different atrocities that have befallen them. Such as the local war lord sending Nawal and her children to Canada or Marina and Jairo trying to take back her family's old house, while this was helped by the columbian governments attempt at reparations but this still does not help her with her dramatic past. To give historical context to each of these conflicts we start with Incendies takes place during the Lebanese civil war taking place between 1975-1990-here is an in depth timeline of the conflict.

"Incendies" takes place during a conflict for most of the time it takes place. The main conflict was between radical Christians and radical Islam the key atrocity witnessed by Nawal is the bus of muslims mercilessly burned by radical christians and she only survives because she is carrying a cross. In "Retratos en un mar de mentiras" it takes place during 2006 when the law of reparations was enacted trying to allow families to regain land that they had lost in the conflict. main act witnessed by Marina is the shooting of her family by paramilitary troops it is never said if it was government or paramilitary and it is not clear why they decide to do this. Both atrocities can be seen in this example on thing link.

These events in conflict are not isolated to their historical dates and times they continue to effect people like Marina and Nawal. When considering reparations we must think of the long term psychological effects of conflict on individuals and instead of focusing just on the material effects we must focus on the most important part of post conflict reparations the actual people and their psychological well being.

#historicalmemory #trauma #reparations