Alephia 2053 is a Lebanese science-fiction film released in 2021 and set in the cyberpunk dystopia of Alephia, a nation state within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), in the year 2053. Directed by Jorj Abou Mhaya, the plot follows revolutionaries trying to topple Alephia’s leader, General Alaa (Aleph II), who has maintained an iron grip on power through propaganda, censorship, mass surveillance, monopolistic control over lucrative resources, and the ever-present threat of violence. Widely recognized as the first animated feature for adults in Arabic, the film was a massive leap forward for cinema in the Levant. Yet, its story failed to leave any lasting impact on its target audience, despite its relatively high production values that netted millions of views on YouTube from across the Arab world and beyond.
It’s a symptom of a transnational systemic crisis happening all over the globe, especially in the realm of revolutionary art. American neoliberal conservatism has robbed us of our imagination for something other than the reality they have dictated for us, leaving us in a state of capitalist realism, the widespread sense that capitalism is the only viable political and economic system, to the extent that we can’t imagine a coherent alternative to it.
Alephia 2053's failure is clear only when what it was trying to accomplish is understood. The film aims to imagine “a future that’s not as bad as the past or the present” for the region, according to one of its creators, Rabi' Sweidan.
Of all the issues the film suffers from, the one that is particularly detrimental to the creators' stated ambitions is that the film completely misses the mark on this, and the first reason for this is the setting. Alephia is meant to amalgamate various nations in the MENA region as a surveillance state with advanced tech, headed by a militaristic despot. The city we’re presented with is an industrialized prison with brutalist structures that overwhelm the skyline. The terrain surrounding it is an unforgiving desert whose trek stretches for days, preventing the denizens from fleeing on foot. Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) seems to be the only language spoken with no traces of localized dialects. Even the signs and billboards are covered in it with perfect spelling and grammar. A lack of authenticity is apparent, and Alephia never feels lived in. Yes, it can’t exactly be compared to real life, because it doesn’t take place in the present. Still, it doesn’t seem like this could be the future of any Arab country, as if Alephia was a byproduct of various tropes with the serial numbers filed off, resulting in it having no identity of its own.
More than that, the film doesn’t seem to have anything to say about the sociopolitical concerns it tackles that can lead us to the future the creators are promising us. Once the regime is inevitably toppled, we, as Arabs seeking out an existence in the region, are not left with any new insight to move forward. The premise is centered around revolution with a stated political agenda by the creator, but the narrative offers little concrete ideology beyond repeating popular slogans. All its standard plotting showed us was an inability to depict a feasible way to dismantle these power structures, using rote action-thriller cliches taken from similar works that have pulled off this premise better like racing against the ticking clock to complete the final mission (The Dark Knight Rises) or hijacking a broadcast to expose the truth to the world (The Running Man). Are we expected to team up with a rag-tag bunch of misfits to concoct a heist full of hijinks to take down the regime? If not, how does watching this help me envision a future of solutions for Lebanon?
Arabs are in desperate need of art that can offer us a vision of what the region can strive for in tandem. Imagining feasible alternative solutions to our collective crises isn’t an indulgence, but a necessity, because what we're experiencing is not a crisis of will but of imagination.
Worse yet, the film fails to show any alternative after ousting General Alaa. Watching the regime fall is meant to be fulfilling, but how can we feel any satisfaction if we don’t know what comes next? At the time of its release, generations had witnessed revolutionary figures establish authoritarian regimes, only for a new band of revolutionaries to topple them and introduce a different flavor of fascism. Beyond lip service to Western talking points that the protagonists spew, what will their leadership manifest as exactly? Do they even have any plan on how to undo decades of ideological brainwashing or how to redistribute the wealth to lift those in need? Vague references to restoring the ideals of the initial revolution that was co-opted by the despot are mentioned, leading to this never-ending yearning for what could’ve been, even though Rabi' Sweidan claimed this film was an attempt to break away from what he calls an obsession with the past.
Like other forms of speculative fiction that suffer from this phenomenon, Alephia 2053 feels less like a film that took inspiration from what came before and more like a blind regurgitation of what we think a movie like this should look and sound like. It’s as if the writers could draw from nothing else but the limited pool of pop culture references prevalent in the Beirut art scene.
That’s not to single out Alephia 2053 in my critique, as it alone isn’t held back by this problem. It’s a symptom of a transnational systemic crisis happening all over the globe, especially in the realm of revolutionary art. American neoliberal conservatism has robbed us of our imagination for something other than the reality they have dictated for us, leaving us in a state of capitalist realism, the widespread sense that capitalism is the only viable political and economic system, to the extent that we can’t imagine a coherent alternative to it.
Like other forms of speculative fiction that suffer from this phenomenon, Alephia 2053 feels less like a film that took inspiration from what came before and more like a blind regurgitation of what we think a movie like this should look and sound like. It’s as if the writers could draw from nothing else but the limited pool of pop culture references prevalent in the Beirut art scene, like the works of Alan Moore (V for Vendetta), the Wachowskis (The Matrix), and their ilk. And, as techno-feudalism robs us of our abilities to engage with society around us, there doesn’t seem to be any way for young artists to escape that trap and make anything that resonates with the masses.
Years after its release, Alephia 2053 has left no cultural impact. Despite the enthusiastic reception that Lebanese productions such as The Insult, Capernaum, or Beirut 6:07 have received in the last decade from international audiences, Alephia 2053 went unnoticed, even though it’s by far the one that lifted the most elements from its foreign influences. It’s a shame, because I agree with the creators. Arabs are in desperate need of art that can offer us a vision of what the region can strive for in tandem. Imagining feasible alternative solutions to our collective crises isn’t an indulgence, but a necessity, because what we're experiencing is not a crisis of will but of imagination.
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