It also examines a particular social environment, with its own particular features and rules. There is forced displacement, which exacerbates various conflicts, whether personal (between an individual and his self) or public (between the characters themselves, in their daily lives). The makers of this drama (director Rami Hanna, who co-wrote the script with Iyad Abu Shamat) have relied on social realism to portray Syrian characters and a Syrian environment in the daily events of their Lebanese "exile," while the sensitiveness of the troubled and confusing relationship between Lebanese and Syrians finds its own special scope within the dramatic course of the work, because of a script that doesn't deviate from its reality; it doesn't offer pre-judgments, or post-judgments, and it doesn't patronize when it comes to tangible incidents.
Stories
The stories are told by the people who live them: Syrians fleeing the destruction in their country to a place in Lebanon in search of salvation, a way out, or refuge until the time comes to return. The stories aren't different from those known about people who follow conservative traditions and customs in religion, culture and education. They don't offer anything new per se about Syrians whose daily lives are known by the overwhelming majority of Lebanese. But these stories are linked dramatically via a technical, visual style that balances them, as dramatic, aesthetic and humanitarian themes become intertwined, and clash with each other. The viewer also discovers a bit of the hidden in terms of people's spirits, minds and actions. This dramatic linkage plays a primary role in transforming the stories from mere stories about daily life into a cohesive, integrated structure. The show is full of mirrors that reveal and tell us things, based on the basic predicament. A popular uprising in Syria erupted on March 18, 2011, demanding humanitarian rights and social justice. It then turned into an excessive, many-sided act of bloodletting. This predicament prompts the characters to take refuge in Lebanon and live in a school, the principal setting of this 30-episode series.
The uprising and its subsequent transformation into a destructive war aren't the only dramatic nucleus of the television script, although the various players, impact and climate of these events are certainly part of it. At the least, they are the motivation for what people do and say; they might cause pain or anger. However, their presence in the dramatic script is open to questions of ethics, and of every-day life: the meaning of the homeland, and belonging to it. The meaning of «defection» that takes place among Syrians themselves (within a single family also) amid the destruction of the country and its society, people and buildings. There are other questions as well: identity, relations with the other, and above all the relationship with the self. Migration, and places of exile. Feelings, love, and clashes with others. Anxiety about the present and a fear about the future. The makers of the show aren't exceptionally concerned with discovering permanent and certain answers to these questions, so much as they want to pose them aesthetically, via the paths, relations and fates of characters, against a diverse backdrop of television episodes.
Thus, the script uses the uprising – and the subsequent madness of killing, violence and deliberate subverting of the uprising – as a purely dramatic foundation, derived from the nature of the existing relationship between people/characters. It doesn't introduce them from out of nowhere, burden them with contrived dialogue, or force them wherever possible into scenes that are out of context. For example, the latent tension in the character of Jaber (Maxim Khalil) results from the reality of the general situation, and from an inability to escape the hells of both Syria and Lebanon. However, Jaber's open, radiant nature often emerges in harsh, spontaneous and honest dialogue with his brother, the writer and poet Mahmoud (Abdel-Monem al-Amayri), about what is happening in Syria. Jaber is «with» the regime and Mahmoud is «with» the uprising. This is where the aesthetic level of the dialogue emerges, with its harsh realism, and casualness that is honest in both dramatic and human terms. It also reflects how the self, one's actions and one's thoughts are being destroyed. In contrast, a second example sees this casual aesthetic move toward other places and situations. It's as if the character Wardeh's lack of affection for the singer Fairouz, for example, is connected to memories of her with her family, and linked to what is taking place every day before they leave for school. This is how the script's artistic and realistic honesty is completely free of any vapid ideological or rhetorical stance.
Credibility of the treatment and the events
There are the bloody, daily Syrian «events», and an attempt to respond to the reality of individual feelings about issues or details of daily life whether or not they are linked to these events. A young woman is in love with a married man; two teenagers are in love; people work in various professions to get by; they look for a way to emigrate, even if illegally; they might join an armed group fighting in Syria; the relationship between a father and his son collapses; a woman has certain spiritual-physical needs, etc. The show is in synch with this spontaneous expression during a time of destruction. It's as if what is taking place on the small screen are the details of daily life; it's as if the characters moving in and around the schoolrooms (where the Syrian displaced live) are the same people who can be found here and there in Lebanon, as they truly are: real people experiencing the pain of displacement, the predicament of the present, the pain of residing in an environment that doesn't exactly «embrace» them, for reasons of politics and sect, and Lebanon's well-known racism.
Above all, they live according to the social, educational and cultural requirements of their Syrian environments, which have been handed down over the generations. This appears within the script and its dramatic-narrative context, or in the general environment more realism of daily life is discovered in the television script. The vitality of the characters, their paths and their destines in the series is a natural extension of the vitality of Syrian refugees, as they search for a dignified life in a country whose people have a confused relationship with them, or for an outlet (any outlet) to exit the brutal destruction that is devouring the entire region.
However, many moments reveal the brilliant script and acting when it comes to dealing with the details. The humorous-sarcastic sense sometimes appears in harsh moments. Jokes – even if bitter – reduce some of the weight of the tragedy at the required moment. This isn't comedy, but rather an actual reflection of people who are skilled at extracting a joke from the depth of a bitter, harsh moment. This isn’t usual, however, because it remains a "positive" attempt to make situations and characters honest in expressing what they say and do.
Many positive observations may be made about this series from the 2015 Ramadan season. The writing encompasses a visual ability to touch on the real lives of people on the brink of various types of collapse (or in the heart of this collapse at times). The dramatic approach to the conditions of these people preserves a harsh reality in telling the stories of individuals, which serve as testimonies of the meaning of pain, loss and flight, and hope as well. These testimonies reflect a reality and relate the chapters of the hell of living amid human destruction, as well as political, security, physical and economic destruction. They show us the hidden side of shattered souls with hope sometimes overcoming the efficiency of death, which comes in different forms, trying to seize any moment of joy or pleasure.
This is portrayed visually in a way that sees the dark colors dominate, allowing us to approach the predicament of characters who are burdened with weariness and anxiety. The camera sometimes leaves behind the close spaces of the rooms and their surroundings (around 80 percent of the scenes were shot in a single place inside the school in Smar, Jbeil), but the director of photography (Tunisian Mohammad Maghrawi) retains the generally dark tone, as a synonym for the environment dominated by gloom, anxiety, defeats, disappointments and contradictions. The editing (by Mazen Saadi) affirms the balance between the stories and their narration; this harmony leads to an integrated general scene.
In short, We'll Meet Tomorrow is a television testament to a purely human situation in all its various aspects. The show, which was produced by Abu Dhabi Channel Network in coordination with the Syrian production firm Claquet, should be further debated because it managed to penetrate people's daily concerns, posing questions and searching for answers that remain suspended for now.
Identity, relations with the other, and above all the relationship with the self. Migration, and places of exile. Feelings, love, and clashes with others. Anxiety about the present and a fear about the future. The makers of the show aren't exceptionally concerned with discovering permanent and certain answers to these questions, so much as they want to pose them aesthetically, via the paths, relations and fates of characters, against a diverse backdrop of television episodes