Mazen Khaled’s visually rapturous second feature finds a young Lebanese man deciding to escape the limited choices his life has to offer. Hassane has grown up in an impoverished neighbourhood in Beirut where his future appears to hold little more than a series of dull, badly paid jobs. He lives with his parents, who despair when he returns home with the news that he has once again been fired. His one consolation is the visits to a local beach with his childhood friends and it’s on one of these trips that Hassane makes a radical decision – to lose himself in the sea that has brought him his only sense of joy. Instead of capturing the impact of the tragedy, Khaled’s film opts for a more expressive, poetic approach, one which produces moments of visual beauty and asks more philosophical questions about the way we choose to live our lives. ★★★★ "Masterful, visceral study of grief" - Phuong Le, The Guardian